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1992 American Civil Religion and the Presidential Rhetoric of Jimmy Carter. Michael James Adee Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
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American civil religion and the presidential rhetoric of Jimmy Carter
Adee, Michael James, Ph.D.
The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1992
Copyright ©1993 by Adee, Michael James. All rights reserved.
UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. AMERICAN CIVIL RELIGION AND THE PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC OF JIMMY CARTER
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in
The Department of Speech Communication
by Michael James Adee B.S., Louisiana State University, 1977 M. Div., Southwestern Theological Seminary, 1981 August 1992
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would not find myself at this place in my journey
if it had not been for the many persons in my circle of
family and friends who have loved and supported me so well.
I am especially grateful to Larry and Ruby Adee for their
generous support throughout my graduate study and teaching
career.
This project would not have been completed without
my director. Dr. Andrew King, who inspired hope and
confidence, a man whose unique blend of intelligence and
kindness I admire. I count it a privilege to have had so
many hours of conversation with him. He is truly a mentor.
I would also like to acknowledge the investment of my
committee and their contributions, in particular. Dr.
Kenneth Zagacki for the challenge he has offered me
throughout my graduate study.
Many friends have encouraged me and I am grateful
for them. I especially want to acknowledge Barry Pitts,
Regina Hoffman, Dr. Donald P. Lee, Dr. Bennie Coates,
Darren Whatley, and Linda Lee.
I dedicate this work to the memory of my mother:
Mary Doris Walker Adee
She loved me and others with an unconditional love. She
brought hope, and laughter, and joy to my life. She taught
me to believe in myself, my abilities, and in making a
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. difference in the world. Her legacy to me includes a sense
of justice, compassion, and optimism.
Ill
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page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii
ABSTRACT ...... vi
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Background ...... 1 The Study in Context ...... 1 Question ...... 5 Theory and Scope ...... 7 Justification ...... 8 Methodology...... 9 Definitions...... 10 Summary ...... 17
2 BIOGRAPHY OF CARTER ...... 18 Introduction ...... 18 Family ...... 18 E d u c a t i o n ...... 21 Career ...... 22 Carter as Fa r m e r ...... 25 Carter as Governor ...... 27 Carter as Southerner ...... 3 0 Carter as "Born-again" Christian .... 33 Summary ...... 38
3 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...... 39 Introduction ...... 39 American civil religion ...... 39 Presidential Rhetoric ...... 41 Jimmy Carter's Political Communication . 44 Summary ...... 46
4 METHODOLOGY ...... 47 Introduction ...... 47 Forerunners ...... 47 Practioners and Salient Features .... 48 Mode of Analysis: A Litmus Test .... 60 Summary ...... 63
5 SELECTION OF DISCOURSE...... 64 Introduction and Rationale ...... 64 Nine major speeches ...... 66 B a c k g r o u n d ...... 67 Summary ...... 75
IV
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 ANALYSIS OF DISCOURSE ...... 76 Introduction ...... 76 Nominal Violations ...... 77 Doctrinal Violations ...... 89 Structural Violations ...... 121 Summary ...... 134 C o n c l u s i o n ...... 135
7 DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR RESEARCH . 147 D i s c u s s i o n ...... 147 Implications ...... 150 Suggestions for Future Research ...... 152 C o n c l u s i o n ...... 153
REFERENCES ...... 155
VITA ...... 160
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT
Scholars have long speculated about the role of
American civil religion and political discourse. Of
particular interest to rhetorical scholars is the function
of a civil religion idiom within presidential discourse.
The cornerstone of this study is founded upon Rod
Hart's ideas in The Political Pulpit (1977) wherein the
nature of American civil religion is described through the
metaphor of a legal contract. A rhetorical approach to
civil religion provides the framework for this study. Nine
major public speeches by Carter as candidate and president,
from 1974 to 1979, are examined in order to locate and
identify the symbolic breeches of the historic separation
of church and state. Carter's rhetorical choices clearly
indicate a unique and creative use of American civil
religion. This usage is unconventional insomuch as he
extends the boundaries that characterize the norms of
civil-religious discourse. This unconventional usage can
be understood as nominal, doctrinal, and structural
violations of the American civil-religious code. It seems
that Carter renegotiates the boundaries between the sacred
and the secular, church and state. This study presents
evidence that civil religion is a tradition in flux.
The examination of Carter's use of the civil-
religious idiom, one of the supposed catalysts for the
vi
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study. Their mobilization for Carter in 1976 and their
defection to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 is partly
explained by Carter's separation of his administration from
the religious right's agenda. Through the application of
the notion of a rhetorical contract, this study provides
cogent explanation for Carter's darkhorse yet successful
campaign in 1976, and the overwhelming defeat by Reagan in
1980.
Vll
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Introduction
Background
Scholars have long speculated about the role of
American civil religion in political discourse. Of
particular interest has been the function of a civil
religion idiom within presidential rhetoric. Much
scholarly discussion has focused on the presence of "god
terms" in political rhetoric and the routine fusion of
political and religious symbols. Many scholars have argued
that despite our official separation of church and state,
political discourse is an arena in which the sacred and the
secular are inextricably bound.
This study is limited to an examination of the modern
American presidency and the existence of American civil
religion in the twentieth century. The status of civil-
religious discourse and the separation of church and state
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is uncertain.
The Studv in Context
Ever since Robert N. Bellah borrowed the phrase from
Rousseau in his seminal article "Civil Religion in America"
(1967) scholars have been speculating about the role of
American civil religion in political discourse. Of
particular interest to rhetorical scholars has been the
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function of a civil religion idiom within presidential
discourse.
Bellah noted that despite the historic separation of
church and state, presidents have routinely called upon the
"Supreme Being" to guide and sanctify the nation.
Following Bellah's lead, Campbell and Jamieson have noted
the powerful 'function' of a generic religious imagery that
is not specifically associated with any single faith or
creed, especially in the case of quasi-epideictic addresses
like presidential inaugurals. Examples of the
effectiveness of this discourse abound: religious language
serves political agenda as in the case of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt 1932 inaugural where the call for radical
political action and greatly expanded power appeared
softened by the utterly conventional use of High Church
religious rhetoric; Abraham Lincoln's placement of himself
and the nation under God's command diminishes the
divisiveness of partisan victory in his Second Inaugural.
Likewise, Thomas Jefferson's constant references to the
"Benevolent Creator" also performed a vital function in
transforming a party program into a continental or national
program.
Bellah described the language of civil religion as an
expression of a common Judeo-Christian consensus. He
wrote: "Behind the civil religion at every point lie
biblical archetypes: Exodus, Chosen People, Promised Land,
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New Jerusalem, sacrificial death and rebirth" (Bellah,
1967, p. 5) . Whether facing war, depression, natural
disaster or civil strife, presidents have routinely evoked
these archetypes. For their part, citizens seem to find
these religious depictions of civic events to be
emotionally satisfying and conventionally appropriate.
While noting its broad use, strategic funtion and
continued attraction for presidential speakers, scholars
have also warned of the dangers of civil-religious
discourse. Ernest Bormann described the care that a
political orator must exercise in his use of the
"restoration" fantasy theme in American public address, a
type which remains "venerable and powerful" because its
religious imagery errs on the side of abstraction and
conversatism (Bormann, 1982, pp. 133-145). Similarly,
Campbell and Jamieson discuss civil-religious discourse in
a way that carefully relegates its correct domain to
moments when the president gracefully surrenders to "a
higher power" or engages in "acknowledging limits,"
rhetorical moves that emphasize the legitimacy of the
office rather than the expansion of executive power or the
personal fortunes of the president (Campbell & Jamieson,
1985, p. 402).
Clearly civil-religious discourse is a sensitive
subject and scholars have repeatedly emphasized the need
for sensitivity to a delicate balance and fragile
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boundaries. Indeed, James David Fairbanks discusses in
"Religious Dimensions of Presidential Leadership" (1982)
the watchfulness that presidents and their writers have
exercised in holding this balance. Eisenhower's speeches
are his major data. In reviewing the Eisenhower corpus,
Fairbanks notes that while abstract religious language
abounds, the speeches very rarely employ sermonic structure
(Fairbanks, 1982, p. 263). Religious discourse had a
'place' within political discourse, and its range of sites,
topics, and ritual argot were apparently well understood.
Most scholars believe that until the middle 1970s
presidents were successful in honoring the delicate balance
and they were rewarded for doing so. Civil-religious
discourse expressed, affirmed, and activated a well-
understood and stable relagionship between church and
state. The abstract and mythic character of the religious
rhetoric preserved the formal separation of the two
spheres. Without compromising its authority to any special
religious interest, the state was allowed to appropriate
the moral authority of the church on occasions of communal
ceremony or national crisis.
However, the domains of religion and politics are
dynamic domains and the massive changes in the world and in
the nation constantly threatened to erode or rupture their
contractual alliance. As late as the 1970s Rod Hart could
assure us that civil-religious discourse represented a
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stable and enduring set of rules of the game for
politicians. Hart was a brilliant scholar, but not as good
as a prophet. The domestic upheaval was upon the nation
even as his book went to press. It is instructive to
recall that Hart proposed it as a world model to
accommodate cultural and creedal differences even as Muslim
Fundamentalism exploded in the Middle East.
Within the Nation, two events threatened the civil-
religious traditions: (1) the recrudesence of funda
mentalist groups with political programs, and (2) the
nomination and subsequent election of Jimmy Carter, a
devout Baptist steeped in the oral tradition of Protestant
Christianity.
The entry of the fundamentalist bloc into American
politics and its eventual transformation into a 'religious
right' has been the subject of numerous books. A smaller
literature has speculated about Carter's impact of the
recruitment of the right and its subsequent defection to
Ronald Reagan. What has remained utterly unexamined is
Jimmy Carter's actual use of the civil-religious idiom, one
of the supposed catalysts for the emergence of the
Christian Right. The examination of Carter's civil-
religious discourse is the focus of this study.
Question
Scholarly claims about the pervasiveness of American
civil religion and its presumed impact within the political
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arena justify a study of this nature. This significant,
increasing body of presidential civil-religious discourse,
and the president's ability to renegotiate the historic
church/state relationship through the use of this generic
discourse further justifies this study.
University of Texas scholar Roderick P. Hart's
significant work The Political Pulpit (1977) has identified
a discourse tradition explaining the presence of American
civil religion within political discourse. Hart has
defined American civil religion as the ritualized
maintenance of the contract between religion and government
(Hart, 1977, p. 64). Accordingly, American civil-religious
discourse is the public expression of the contractual
enactment of this sacred-secular understanding. This
balance between government and an increasingly pluralistic
religious heritage is constantly being affirmed, re
enacted, and gradually re-negotiated through American
civil-religious discourse.
Religion and Carter's "born-again" candidacy became
one of the key issues in the 1976 Presidential campaign.
Clearly Carter and his campaign team disrupted that balance
between religion and government. The purpose of this study
is to analyze James Earl Carter, Jr.'s strategic use of
American civil-religious discourse during his campaign and
presidency. Emphasis will be placed upon its appeal to
evangelical voters and its impact upon our historic church
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and state covenant. Moreover, this study will seek to
locate and identify sacred-secular violations within
Carter's discourse.
Theory and Scope
This study is grounded in the perspective that
discourse is a speech act. That is, our political
relationships are constantly being recycled, legitimized,
and even renegotiated through presidential discourse
(Denton, 1982, p. 7). Rhetoric is enactment.
There are two presuppositions that supply the
necessary context for this particular study. The first
presupposition is that Jimmy Carter bears reponsibility for
mobilizing a substantial segment of socially conservative
evangelical voters on behalf of his candidacy (Hahn, 1980,
p. 62) . Second, it is also presumed that as President,
Carter subsequently disillusioned these voters, many of
whom then became supporters of Ronald Reagan in the 1980
election (Hahn, 1984, p. 281).
This study proposes to examine the nature of the
overtures Carter made to these voters during his campaign
and his continuing relationship with them during his one-
term presidency. Since a President acts largely through
discourse, especially in an electronic media age, my method
will be to identify the nature and function of the messages
addressed to this audience as they arose within the context
of Carter's major campaign and presidential addresses.
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A generic form exists for the analysis of this type of
civil-religious discourse. American civil religion, as
developed by Robert Bellah, Rod Hart, and others, will help
to pose and answer the following questions:
1. Did Carter construct messages intended for an
evangelical audience within obstensibly political
discourse?
2. Were there "evangelical forms" within Carter's
discourse that made particular overtures to such
voters?
3. What was the nature of the relationship between
church and state as envisioned in Carter's
rhetoric?
4. Did Carter's discourse manifest certain speech
acts that suggested a violation or weakening of
the historic separation of church and state
contract?
5. Did Carter extend covert promises to evangelicals
within his discourse, and what assumptions and
implications about Carter's positions on
socio-ethical issues were encouraged by the formal
expectations inherent in American civil religious
discourse?
Justification
This study may be justified on four grounds: First,
it deals with a perenially important issue in the United
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States, separation of church and state. Second, it focuses
upon a relatively brief period during which a presidential
candidate and later president seemed to be signaling a
substantial change in the church-state relationship (i.e.,
a Christian Presidency). Third, while other scholars have
studied Presidential discourse to monitor the broad outline
of this relationship, this study will examine the specific
language forms through which a new church-state
relationship was envisioned, if not ultimately negotiated.
In this way, the pioneering work of Robert Bellah and Rod
Hart on the rhetoric of civil religion may be extended,
perhaps even challenged. Fourth and finally, this study
will make a rigorous examination of American civil
religious discourse as a genre. Although suggested in the
work of Rod Hart, the formal and thematic features of this
discourse have not been described. It is here that the
author's long familiarity with the special conventions of
evangelical rhetoric may be particularly useful.
Methodology
The evaluation of Carter's discourse will involve
close textual analysis of nine major addresses. These
addresses will come from Carter as 1976 presidential
candidate and as our thirty-ninth President.
Characteristically evangelical forms, images, and appeals
will be identified and their function within the text will
be analyzed. While Rod Hart's "rhetorical contract" will
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provide the evaluative guide for the discourse, evangelical
form criticism will be employed in cataloging and
describing its religious features.
Definitions
Four primary definitions will clarify the nature of
this study: (1) rhetoric, (2) American civil religion,
(3) the Presidency, (4) the "rhetorical contract."
Rhetoric. Since classical times the debate over the
nature, purposes, and virtues of rhetoric has remained
unresolved. Many have considered rhetoric to be mere
suasory, others see rhetoric as only ornamentation within
discourse that obscures truth. Great thinkers across the
ages have offered definitions of rhetoric. Aristotle
defined rhetoric as "the discovery of the available means
of persuasion." Plato understood rhetoric as the "art of
enchanting the soul with words." Francis Bacon described
rhetoric as "the application of reason to imagination for
the better moving of the will." Kenneth Burke has
explained rhetoric as "the use of symbols to induce
cooperation in men." Chaim Perelman has argued that the
purpose of rhetoric is "to intensify an adherence to
values, to create a disposition to act, and finally to
bring people to act" (Golden, Berquist, & Coleman, 1984, p.
406). Rhetoric, then, is the strategic use of
communication to achieve specified goals. Rhetoric is
essential to our understanding of how we come to know.
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believe, and act. Rhetoric is not only the "vehicle" that
carries information, but it is actually the dynamic process
by which we create, discover, transmit, and interpret
information, symbols, and ideas. There are six primary
constituent elements in this rhetorical process: (1)
rhetor, or speaker; (2) his or her "world-view"; (3)
message; (4) audience; (5) exigence; (6) situation, or
context.
The concept of rhetorical situation began with Kenneth
Burke who believed that "rhetorical works are strategic,
stylized answers to questions posed by the situation in
which they arise" (Brock, 1980, p. 381). Lloyd Bitzer
further identified the characteristics of a rhetorical
situation. These characteristics are evident in Bitzer's
definition of rhetorical situation:
Rhetorical situation may be defined as a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence. (1968, p. 2)
Bitzer's concept of rhetorical situation emphasizes motive
and the interplay of the constituent elements in the
rhetorical process. Exigences act as agents that "call
forth" responses in the form of discourse. The nature of
the discourse may vary due to differing world-view and
perception of the exigence on the part of the rhetor and
the audience. A particular situation may also be
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influenced by similar situations and antecedent rhetorical
forms (Jamieson, 1973, p. 163). Nevertheless, rhetoric can
be understood as a strategic response to a certain exigence
in a particular situation. For the purposes of this study
examples of discourse created and influenced by their
rhetorical situations would be a campaign speech or
advertisement, the convention acceptance address, a
Presidential inaugural, or discourse addressing a domestic
or foreign crisis.
American civil religion. American civil religion is
the term that sociologist Robert Bellah has applied to the
long-standing tradition of religious-civil discourse in
American public life. Bellah has defined American civil
religion as "the religious symbol system which related the
citizen's role and American society's place in space, time,
and history to the conditions of ultimate existence and
meaning" (1967, p. 4) . This public religious dimension is
expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals that
combine to form a fairly well-institutionalized civil
religion in America.
A number of historians and politicians over the years
have influenced the American public to hold a special view
of itself as a nation (Bellah, 1985, p. 28) . When our
country has become identified as a "special nation," a
"Christian nation," and a "chosen nation," then the
American people become "the chosen people," people of
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destiny. This perspective has often been supported by the
prevailing viewpoint that the United States was founded for
the pur-pose of religious liberty or perhaps religious
toleration, not to mention the economic and social benefits
of leaving the Old World. This religious heritage is one
of the primary images or symbols that many, if not the
overwhelming majority of politicians and presidents employ
in their practice of civil religion. American civil
religion is complete with its (1) patriarchs: George
Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and the
other "Founding Fathers"; (2) its sacred documents: the
Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the
Constitution; and (3) its martyred patron saints: Abraham
Lincoln, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Martin Luther King,
Jr.
According to Will Herberg there are three basic tenets
that form the structure of American civil religion. The
first tenet is a belief in God. Nationwide polls
consistently indicate that 97-98% of the American public
profess belief in God. The second tenet is a belief in the
"American Way" or in the American system. Capitalism, the
Protestant work ethic, and democracy are structures that
combine to form the American Way. The third tenet is the
Judeo-Christian tradition which offers both religious
toleration and also reinforcement for Protestant, Catholic,
Jewish faiths (Herberg, 1967, p. 475). American civil
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religion actually supports the plurality of religions by
offering a transcendent, generic structure which supersedes
the diversity of religions within our culture. In reality,
the pluralistic nature of our society and government might
not be possible without this American civil religion.
American civil religion is not to be confused with
"real religion." American civil religion is a symbolic
construction used to explain and describe the existence of
religious discourse within the larger framework of politics
and political discourse. This public piety or civil
religion is not personal piety and private religion.
The Presidency. The Presidency is at the center of
political life in America. Citizens view the President not
only as the Chief Executive, but also as the "moral leader"
of the country. The President is not only spokesman but
also our representative to the world. The President
becomes "a symbol of our national aspirations, our national
mood, our national prestige" (Windt, 1983, p. 1). The
President is believed to be among the most powerful of
persons not only in the country but in the world.
The President has two areas of power available to him:
(1) constitutional, and (2) rhetorical. He has
constitutional authority as chief executive and
administrator as well as commander-in-chief in wartime. He
has legislative power through his role as leader of his
political party in Congress. Richard Neustadt has argued
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that "Presidential power is the power to persuade" (1960,
p. 10). While Neustadt limited his study to how presidents
attempt to persuade the executive and legislative branches
of government, persuasive power is exercised in the public
domain as well. According to Theodore Windt these powers
"depend upon a greater, more fundamental power - public
opinion. Marshalling public support is a distinctly
rhetorical power available to the President" (1983, p. 2).
A President's rhetorical power then is contingent upon his
ability to influence public opinion and therefore gain,
maintain, or lose public support.
The Presidency is much more than just our nation's
highest political office, more than the position as chief
executive, and more than the victor in our political party
system. The Presidency is more than the sum of its parts.
The American Presidency is an institution characterized by
the symbolic, mythic nature of the office and influenced by
the individual and collective expectations of its
electorate. Robert E. Denton (1982) has argued for a
symbolic-interactionist perspective of the American
Presidency. The dimensions of this symbolic interaction
that comprise "the Presidency" include the ideas, values,
and expectations of the following: (1) individual citizens;
(2) the general public or society; and (3) the specific
persons who seek and/or hold the office, especially as they
modify their own behavior to meet their public's
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expectations of Presidential behavior (1982, p. 9).
Moreover, each Presidential hopeful and office-holder
creates, alters, or reinforces individual and public
expectations through discourse, use of symbols, rituals,
and his or her own particular sense of history. Denton's
concept of the symbolic-interactionist Presidency related
to expectations and the public domain is further understood
by the following:
The Presidency is a product of interaction. The institution is comprised of the public's historic, mythic perceptions and expectations of the office. It "grows" as individual occupants and situations mold, shape, create, and reinforce various public perceptions and expectations of the office. The Presidency is not what goes on behind closed doors. Its true significance and impact lies in the public domain. (Denton, 1982, p. 8)
The American President is prophet, priest, or king
depending upon the expectation or the situation (Novak,
1976, p. 302). The President's power is derived ultimately
from his power to persuade. The office itself has been
granted certain powers by the Constitution, but the real
power is explained by the phenomenon called the "rhetorical
Presidency."
Rhetorical Contract. Of central importance to this
study is Rod Hart's book. The Political Pulpit. Hart
described the nature of American civil religion through the
metaphor of legal contract. Hart has characterized the
situation between the American public and her politicians
in terms of a "rhetorical contract." A "balance" must be
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maintained between government and religion according to
Hart's construct. The idea of balance between government
and religion may certainly have antecedent forms in the
early documents of our country's founding. The most
significant feature of Hart's work is his rhetorical
approach to civil religion. Hart's focus is on enactment,
reaffirmation, and recycling of our civil-religious
understanding through political discourse (Hart, 1977, pp.
43-45).
Summary
This chapter has introduced the research question and
the background, context, and justification of the study.
It has also described the methodology and offered four
primary definitions that clarify the nature of this study:
rhetoric; American civil religion; the Presidency; and the
rhetorical contract. The next chapter will offer a
biography of Jimmy Carter.
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Biography: The Development of
Jimmy Carter's Political-Religious Vision
Introduction
President Carter's accomodation of religious belief
and political action was the product of a lifetime of
experience and reflection. In 1983, Carter himself
declared: "There is no way to understand me and my
political philosophy without understanding my faith" (Shaw,
1983, p. 16). His articulation of the relationship between
religion and politics had deep roots. His conception grew
out of a particular religious tradition, and it was
powerfully influenced by his region, family, education and
by the exigencies of his several careers. In addition, it
was affected by the vast changes through which the United
States passed during the two decades before his presidency.
Accordingly, this chapter will discuss the evolution of
President Carter's 'political-religious voice' through a
series of historical, biographical, and theological
categories.
Familv
James Earl Carter, Jr. was born in Sumter County in
the small town of Plains, Georgia, on October 1, 1924, the
son of James Earl Carter, Sr. and the former Lillian Gordy.
He was an eighth-generation Georgian whose ancestors,
18
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including cotton farmers, merchants, and Civil War
soldiers, had lived in the southwestern part of the state
for one hundred-fifty years.
His father had been the manager of a grocery store and
owner of the town's ice-house and dry-cleaning business
prior to buying land outside of Plains and establishing a
business selling farm supplies and buying peanuts from
local farmers for resale. In addition to his local
businesses, he also served as a representative to Georgia's
state legislature until his death in 1953.
Carter's mother, a nurse, was active in local social
causes. She joined the Peace Corps in 1967 and served for
two years in India on birth-control information projects
(Moritz, 1971, p. 83).
Jimmy Carter was the first-born son and oldest of four
children. When Jimmy was two years old his first sister,
Gloria Carter Spann, was born. Of the four Carter
children, Gloria has maintained the lowest profile and she
has continued to make her home in southern Georgia.
Ruth Carter Stapleton, the second sister, achieved
some acclaim as a lay Baptist minister who traveled the
country lecturing on faith healing. She is the author of a
book on that subject The Gift of Inner Healing (1976). She
joined the rest of the Carter family in campaigning for her
brother and she would figure prominently in highlighting
his faith and his ability to render 'spiritual leadership.'
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The fourth and last Carter child born to Earl and
Lillian was Jimmy's youngest sibling and only brother,
William Alton Carter, III, better known as "Billy." Billy
Carter had always been more of a "good ol' boy" than his
brother Jimmy who was remembered as the "bookworm" of the
family by his public high school classmates. Billy
remained in Plains, involved in both the family businesses
and a local service station, until his recent death to
cancer.
Carter grew up in a largely rural culture and attended
the small public Plains High School where he played
basketball and graduated in 1941 as the class valedictorian
at the age of sixteen. His classmates remembered him as a
brilliant student who surpassed them academically with
little effort and as a member of the debating team. In his
autobiography Whv Not the Best. Carter recalled that his
workmates and playmates on the farm were black, while his
schoolmates were white, and he retained a capacity for
friendships that crossed racial lines throughout his life.
According to Carter, his father provided him with loving,
personal support illustrated by his father's nickname for
him - "Hot," for "Hotshot" because "Daddy never assumed I
would fail at anything" (Moritz, 1978, p. 100).
Gloria Carter Spann, Carter's closest sibling in age,
upon reflection of their growing up, told biographer Kandy
Stroud, author of How Jimmv Won (1977) ; "He wasn't shy, he
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was little. He was only five feet three when he went away
to college. He was never really aggressive either until
recently. He was never a leader except in the family
because he was the oldest". Carter himself told Stroud:
"Yes, I was shy, but a better word would be isolated . . .
my life was centered on the farm" (Moritz, 1978, p. 101).
Carter's country and small-town roots, and his family,
would play a prominent role in his presidential campaign.
The Carter clan campaigned vigorously alongside Jimmy and
his wife, Rosalynn. Carter's ordinary and to some,
eccentric, family provided a striking contrast to the
typical "Presidential" families.
Education
Carter studied for a year at Georgia Southwestern
College in Americus, then for another year at the Georgia
Institute of Technology in Atlanta, taking prerequisite
mathematics courses for admission to the United States
Naval Academy. For Carter, going to the academy at
Annapolis in 1943 was a childhood-long goal, partly
inspired by his late uncle Tom Gordy who had been a career
Navy man. He graduated from Annapolis with a B.S. degree
and a commission in the top tenth of his class, ranked
fifty-nine out of eight hundred and twenty. Unlike the
majority of our presidents whose formal education has been
predominantly literary and historical, Carter's essential
training was in engineering.
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After two years of naval service on battleships, he
transferred to the submarine service in 1948. In 1951,
Carter applied for admission to the nuclear submarine
program under Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover would
later become a major role model as evidenced in Carter's
writings. Carter was assigned to be a senior officer in
the precommissioning crew of the "Sea Wolf," the second
atomic submarine built, while he also studied nuclear
physics and engineering at Union College, Schenectady, New
York. Carter continued to serve in the Navy until 1953
attaining the rank of lieutenant (Moritz, 1978, p. 101).
Career
Since he was a young boy. Carter had aspired to become
the Chief of Naval Operations, but upon his father's death
in 1953 Carter ended his military service and returned to
Georgia. Carter returned to Plains where his father had
played significant roles in business, church, civic affairs
and politics. Carter took over the family businesses and
he rebuilt them. He expanded the seed and fertilizer
businesses, applied new scientific techniques to the
peanut-farming operations, and he added shelling and
warehouse services for other farmers. Carter managed the
family interests, including the Carter Warehouses which
grossed an estimated $800,000 a year by early 1971, and
owned some 2,500 acres of farmland in Sumter and Webster
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counties. Carter had become a considerably successful
peanut farmer and businessman (Moritz, 1972, p. 83).
Carter's civic involvement in his hometown, region,
and state has been both extensive and diverse. From 1955
to 1962 he served as chair of the Sumter County Board of
Education. He was member and later chair of the Americus
and Sumter County Hospital Authority from 1956-1970. He
was also a member of the Sumter County Library Board in
1961. In 1963 Carter became president of the Plains
Development Corporation and the Sumter Redevelopment
Corporation. In 1964 he helped organize and became the
first chair of the West Central Georgia Planning and
Development Commission. In 1968, Carter was president of
the Georgia Planning Association and of the Georgia Crop
Improvement Association in 1968-9. He has also been a
state chair of the March of Dimes charity and a district
governor of Lions International.
Carter's father had served in Georgia's state
legislature as a representative and was serving as such at
the time of his death in 1953. Carter himself made his
first bid for elective office in 1962 when he became a
candidate for the Georgia State Senate. Carter contested
the original returns of that election, charging foul play
at the ballot box. With help from attorney Charles H.
Kirbo of Atlanta, Carter convinced the State Democratic
Committee that fraud had indeed been committed and his name
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went forward as the Democratic nominee in the general
election. Carter was victorious in that election and
reelected two years later. His service in the Georgia
State Senate from 1963-1966 earned him a reputation for
diligent attention to legislative detail, for initiative in
formulating education legislation, for maintaining a
moderately liberal voting record, and for being designated
as one of its most effective members by a poll (Moritz,
1978, p. 101).
Although still relatively unknown. Carter decided to
become a candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial primary
in 1966 and he came in an impressive third in the six-man
campaign. The Democratic candidate Lester Maddox, a
staunch segregationist, faced Republican state
representative Howard M. Callaway for the governorship.
Liberals who opposed Maddox chose former governor Ellis
Arnall as their write-in candidate which split the vote so
that none of the three received a majority vote in the
November election. The result was that the State General
Assembly elected Maddox on January 10, 1967. After his
defeat in the 1966 Democratic primary race. Carter returned
home to his business and civic activities. At the same
time he made serious preparations for the 1970
gubernatorial campaign.
During the four years between elections, 1966-1970,
Carter delivered some 1,800 speeches throughout the state.
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building an effective political organization and gaining
wide publicity, particularly at the grass-roots level. For
the second gubernatorial campaign in 1970 Carter assembled
his team. Key members included: (1) a political science
student at the University of Georgia named Hamilton Jordan
who had served as the 1966 campaign's youth coordinator,
then became campaign manager for 1970; (2) treasurer Robert
Lipshutz, an Atlanta attorney and leader in the city's
Jewish community; (3) media consultant Gerald Rafshoon,
owner of an Atlanta advertising agency; and (4) Jody
Powell, who had just completed graduate work in political
science at Emory University. These key men had served on
the 1966 team and would return for the successful 1970
campaign; they stayed on Carter's staff through all
subsequent campaigns (Moritz, 1978, p. 101).
Carter as Farmer
Jimmy Carter's occupation as a farmer added a
significant dimension to his identity. As a working farmer
he was able to appropriate many of the historical,
aesthetic, and cultural appeals of agrarian America.
Echoes of populist doctrine could be included in his
campaign, but most important were the Jeffersonian agrarian
virtues of innocence, honesty, and plain talk that could be
affirmed against the backdrop of an overwhelmingly
urbanized, bureaucratized, and Nixon/Watergate-corrupted
America.
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In his New Republic June 26, 1976 article "Jimmy
Carter: Agrarian Rebel? The Southern Paradox," Robert Coles
affirmed the agrarian virtues of Carter's first biography,
Whv Not the Best: "Jimmy Carter's personal memoir contains
an unashamedly sentimental and kindly look backward at an
earlier, harder, but simpler and more traditional world"
(1976, p. 16). According to Coles, Carter's world,
particularly rural, southern Georgia, was populated by
"devout. God-fearing, hard-working men and women" (1976, p.
17) . Many of Carter's ancestors were farmers and his
father's primary business was farming. In 1953 Carter
himself resigned from the Navy to take over the Carter
farms after his father's death. Unlike most politicians
who seemed to be rootless opportunists. Carter had stayed
on his land.
In his political career. Carter extolled an agrarian
style and ethic. For example, for the 1970 gubernatorial
primary campaign "Carter adopted a populist, down-to-earth
approach, promoting himself as a 'simple country boy' in
contrast to the aloof and sophisticated manner of his
principal opponent, Carl E. Sanders, a liberal, who had
served as Governor of Georgia from 1963 to 1967" (Moritz,
1972, p. 84).
Carter's down-home style was indicated by going to the
people at the grass-roots level. Because former Governor
Sanders had been endorsed by the state's political and
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business leaders and supported by most of Georgia's large
newspapers as the definite favorite, he did little to meet
Carter's back to basics, rural challenge. From 1966 until
1970 Carter had crossed the state giving some 1,800
speeches. Carter benefitted from the prevailing "anti
establishment" and "anti-politician" sentiments among the
electorate - a situation that would serve him well again in
his 1976 Presidential campaign. Carter's face-to-face,
voter-by-voter approach was in tune with the anti-
institutional mood of the state electorate, just as his
personalized recitals of agrarian virtue would later strike
a chord in a national electorate disillusioned by Watergate
and Vietnam.
This image of a Georgia peanut-farmer and the agrarian
populist appeal would remain a central part of Carter's
projected identity before the American public as candidate
and President. Moreover, this appeal would remain a vital
part of his public discourse as he would strive for
identification with the American people and marshall
support for his policies and programs.
Carter as Governor
Carter's experience as governor was decisive in the
formation of his presidential style. His triumph was
presaged by a religious experience and his administration
was energized by an atmosphere of novel outsiderness. The
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presidency as a moral calling and an ethic of populist
renewal became Carter's special political style notes.
Carter and others have reported that this loss in the
19 6 6 Democratic gubernatorial primary was a pivotal
experience for him. Following his unsuccessful first bid
for the office of governor, Carter reported a powerful
religious experience. As Carter recounted in his first
biography in 1975 Whv Not the Best; "In early 1967 I had a
profound religious experience that changed my life
dramatically, and I recognized for the first time that I
lacked something very precious - a complete commitment to
Christ, a presence of the Holy Spirit in my life in a more
profound and personal way, and since then I've had an inner
peace and an inner conviction and assurance that
transformed my life for the better" (Moritz, 1978, p. 101).
Moreover, it would seem that Carter's political
ambitions were somehow further motivated by this religious
conviction. After his defeat in the 1966 primary race.
Carter returned to his business and civic activities, but
at the same time made serious preparations for the 1970
gubernatorial campaign.
For the 1970 Democratic primary campaign Carter
adopted a populist, down-to-earth approach. He promoted
himself as a 'simple country boy' and tried to appeal to
popular sentiments in the conservative rural areas and
among urban blue-collar workers by criticizing the practice
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of busing public school pupils to obtain a racial balance
and by supporting private schools. Carter's campaign
tactics were viewed as opportunistic by some observers and
as evidence of his shrewdness by others. Carter secured a
plurality among the nine Democratic candidates in the
primary with 48.6% of the vote. Moreover, Carter then won
the general election with 59.3% of the vote over Republican
opponent Hal Suit. Carter had sought the support of not
only the state's established white political bosses, but
also black leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. Even though President Nixon had campaigned for
Hal Suit, Carter's victory was clearly decisive (Moritz,
1972, p. 84).
Because his conservative stands had blurred his
reputation as a moderate liberal. Carter emerged from the
election as an enigma. His inaugural adddress on January
12, 1971 with its declaration, ”I say to you quite frankly
that the time for racial discrimination is over," earned
Carter national attention, a Time magazine cover story, and
a place among progressive politicians from "the New South."
Carter had become what James Wooten has called the
"existential politician," one committed to an endless cycle
of holding one office while preparing to run for another
one. The governorship was merely a way station to the
Presidency.
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Carter would use his experience as governor of Georgia
to demonstrate his administrative ability as he campaigned
for the Presidency. Carter's claim that he made
"government work" in Georgia was offered as evidence that
he could do the same for the nation. His claims about
reducing waste and taming the bureaucracy at the State
House were offered as demonstrations of his ability to
perform the same actions in the White House.
Carter as Southerner
Southern identity is a product of birth, nurture, and
conscious choice. Born and raised on a farm in rural,
southwestern Georgia, near the small towns of Plains and
Archery, Jimmy Carter's education, both formal and
informal, would remain overwhelmingly within a Southern
context. After graduating from the small public high
school in Plains, he spent two years at Georgia colleges-
one year at Georgia Southwestern College in Americus, and
then, one year at the Georgia Institute of Technology in
Atlanta. He would then go to the United States Naval
Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. For only a half-dozen
years while in the Navy, Carter left the South, including
his only Northern excursion to New York from 1951 to 1953
when serving with the nuclear submarine program. He would
return to Plains in 1953 and remain in the South until he
would go to the White House in 1976.
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It could be argued that Carter remained most
comfortable with persons of similar cultural backgrounds,
that is, other Southerners. Carter biographer Betty Glad
has reported of his time at Annapolis: "As with other
midshipmen. Carter's friendships were often based on
geography - he tended to mainly 'run with Southerners'"
(Glad, 1980, p. 52) . Carter's staff and key advisers on
the campaign trail and in office were mostly Southern:
Charles H. Kirbo, longtime friend and Georgia attorney;
media expert from Atlanta, Gerald Rafshoon; Jody Powell,
graduate of Emory University; Hamilton Jordan, University
of Georgia graduate; and Robert Lipshutz, an Atlanta
attorney.
Carter's Southern identity served his "outsider"
strategy - he was neither from the Northeast nor from one
of the big city political machines. Throughout his
political career and particularly in the 1976 campaign.
Carter sought to distance himself from the political
establishment. An example of this frequently used appeal
was the Carter television commercial "Bandwagon," which
aired in New York shortly after the Illinois primary. The
television commercial carried the following message: "A
recent Gallup Poll shows that only one Democrat can beat
Gerald Ford for the Presidency. It isn't one of the
Washington insiders and it isn't the Democrat who tied on
with the political bosses and king-makers. The only
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Democrat who can beat Gerald Ford is Jimmy Carter" (Glad,
1980, p. 259).
Of course. Southern identity had potential liability,
because traditionally most of the nation has regarded the
South and Southerners as less sophisticated, less educated,
and more racist than the other regions of the country. As
a "Southerner" Carter would become an easy target for
political cartoonists, reporters, and journalists. But
Carter established himself as a different kind of
Southerner. Carter's ability to establish or enhance his
credibility and identification with voters by describing
himself in a number of ways illustrated his political
skill. Because Southerners did not typically enjoy
intellectual prestige in other regions of the country,
particularly from the powerful Northeast sector. Carter
could bolster his intellectual image by presenting himself
as a nuclear engineer and physicist and therefore, balance
out his other images as Southerner and peanut farmer.
Carter's first appearance on the cover of a national news
magazine. Time May 31, 1971, shows that he was successful
in communicating this difference. The Time cover headline
"Dixie Whistles a Different Tune" with a drawing of
Carter's face upon the background - a juxtaposition of both
the Confederate and American flags - with the subtitle
"Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter" suggested that Carter
represented both continuity and change.
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Although journalists cast Carter as a politician of
the "New South" and as a progressive, his values more
characteristically matched those of the traditional South,
especially those of the rural Southerner. Columnist George
F. Will noted: "Carter is an unmistakably conservative
person. The values he obviously cherishes and repeatedly
invokes - piety, family, community, continuity,
industriousness, discipline - are the soul of conservatism
. . . Because Carter's political persona is a blend of
liberal measures and conservative values, he is a baffling
foe for Republicans" (Will, 1976, p. 33).
Presenting himself as both "traditional" and
"progressive," Carter was able to reach out to disparate
sections of the electorate. To Northern liberals and
minorities he was that fascinating commodity, the converted
or reformed Southerner ready to join the Union at last.
For Southern whites, he was one of their own taking on the
mantle of power at last.
Carter as "Born-again" Christian
Jimmy Carter's public declarations identifying himself
as a "born-again Christian," a Sunday School teacher, and
as an active member of the Southern Baptist Convention,
brought widespread media attention to his candidacy.
Moreover, religion became one of the primary topics of the
1976 campaign.
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Traditionally, Presidents and presidential candidates
have been members of the "mainstream" Protestant
denominations such as Episcopalian or Presbyterian.
Moreover, most have only been nominally involved and
marginally identified by their religious affiliation. The
model of the Presidency most people hold would be that of a
President affiliated with a high-church tradition. In
Georgia, the overwhelming religious tradition is Protestant
with Baptists forming the leading denomination. Carter's
religious affiliation, and even his religious practice,
would be a cultural norm in Georgia.
While Carter's personal faith and public practice
would be considered part of the cultural landscape in parts
of the South and West, outside of that milieu such
religious expression would be considered quite exotic.
Peter Meyer raised the question that must have been on the
mind of many a voter in 1976 - "Was Jimmy Carter - Sunday
School teacher, hymn-singing, Bible-quoting, twice-born
evangelical Christian - a preacher or a politician?"
(Meyer, 1978, p. 57). Moreover, Meyer observed that:
"Jimmy Carter and his evangelical ways were oddities-
unknown to the national press, the eastern establishment,
and a good many Americans living outside the South" (Meyer,
1978, p. 58).
As Dan F. Hahn has observed: "The most obvious
characteristic of Jimmy Carter, revealed in his rhetoric as
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well as in other ways, was that he was a deeply religious
person” (1984, p. 280). During interviews and in his
public discourse. Carter would identify himself through his
religious belief and practice, and often approach political
issues through his own spiritual viewpoint. Hahn,
moreover, has argued that Carter's religion became part of
his campaign strategy: "During the campaign [1976] Carter's
religion was used to suggest to the people that Carter's
godliness could help him be a good president, that because
of the God-Carter relationship the Carter-people
relationship would be close" (1984, p. 281).
Carter's close identification with religion became an
important component of his ethos. He seemed to be Cato's
"good man speaking well." As Keith V. Erickson has
observed: "Carter's religious-political discourse
reaffirmed our civic piety and faith in America: his
religious discourses communicated trustworthiness, served
as a source of identification with evangelicals, and
generated media attention" (1980, p. 222). By designating
himself as a "born-again Christian," Carter would appeal to
the growing segment of evangelical voters who were then
forming the religious-political coalition that would become
known as the "New Religious Right." Even though the
expression "born-again" - Christian - is clearly redundant,
it signifies a "special type" of Christian - not only
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conservative and evangelical, but spirit-filled, often but
not always fundamentalist.
In Whv Not the Best. Carter offered the following
explanation of the role of religion in his life: "My
religion is as natural to me as breathing. I'm a father
and I'm a Christian. I'm a businessman and I'm a
Christian. I'm a farmer and I'm a Christian. I'm a
politician and I'm a Christian. The most important thing
in my life beyond all else is Jesus Christ" (p. 59).
Carter's description of the priority and role of faith
in his daily life and work is consistent with the context
of his religious training within the Southern Baptist
denomination. Southern Baptist historian H. Leon McBeth
reported that Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant
denomination in the United States with 14,730,000 members
in more than 37,000 local congregations throughout the
nation in 1987 (1988, p. 17). McBeth characterized
Southern Baptists as "teaching 'rigorous morality';
offering a 'gospel invitation' at the end of most sermons;
offering 'Sunday School' or religious education for
children, youth, and adults; and associating in autonomous
local congregations who decide their own financial and
ecclesiastical affairs" (p. 21).
Southern Baptist theologian L. Russ Bush had
identified several distinctive, unifying doctrinal beliefs
of his denomination. Southern Baptists have often called
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themselves "People of the Book." The Bible, according to
'The Baptist Faith and Message Statement,' adopted in 1963,
is "divinely inspired and is the record of God's revelation
of Himself to man" (1988, p. 24) . Even though there is a
measure of diversity within the denomination. Bush
maintained that "in general. Baptists historically have
been a free, evangelistic people, holding to divine
sovereignty, trinitarianism, the deity of Christ, election
resulting in regeneration, the necessity of visible
repentance and faith, salvation that begins and perseveres
by grace alone, believer's baptism by immersion, a symbolic
Lord's Supper, a gathered church, and a congregational
polity" (p. 25).
Southern Baptist Salvationist theology with its
emphasis upon religious "experience" as necessary for
conversion explains the designation "born again." While
many voters might have had confidence in Carter as a "born
again" candidate, others were concerned about such a
candidate's ability to properly administer the executive
branch of the government for a pluralistic nation. James
Wolcott described Carter as "single-minded" early in the
1976 campaign, and according to Dan F. Hahn, "that
perception of him as a driven man, coupled with his born-
again religious emphasis, suggested to many that he might
be some kind of fanatic" (1984, p. 282). Moreover, George
F. Will said of Carter during the summer of the 1976
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campaign; "he burns with an unfamiliar religiosity" (1976,
p. 33). Carter's expressions of faith must have seemed
quite unfamiliar to the press, to the political
establishment in Washington, D.C. and to many voters, but
he was elected in 1976 over Republican incumbent Gerald
Ford. Since credibility was a major factor in that
campaign, one powerful contribution to the bolstering of
Carter's image as a "believable, credible candidate" just
might have been his and the media's focus upon his personal
faith and "born again" religion.
Summary
This chapter offered a biographical sketch of Jimmy
Carter with particular attention given to the development
of his political-religious vision. The biographical
categories included family, education, and career. Four
additional dimensions were also provided of Carter as
farmer, governor, southerner, and born-again Christian.
The next chapter will offer a literature review for the
study.
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Review of the Literature
Introduction
This topic of study calls for a review of literature
in three areas; (1) American civil religion,
(2) Presidential rhetoric, and (3) Jimmy Carter's political
communication.
American civil religion
"American civil religion" is the term that sociologist
Robert N. Bellah has applied to the long standing tradition
of civil-religious discourse in American public life in his
first essay on the subject "Civil Religion in America."
While some have argued that Christianity is the rational faith, and others that church and synagogue celebrate only the generalized religion of 'The American Way of Life,' a few have realized that there actually exists alongside of and rather clearly differentiated from the churches an elaborate and well-insitutionalized civil religion in America. (1967, p. 1).
Antecedent forms of Bellah's concept of American civil
religion are found in Will Herberg's work Protestant.
Catholic. Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology
(1955). According to Herberg three central components
define the "American Way of Life." This triadic identity
includes : (1) belief in God; (2) belief in religion; and
(3) belief in the three-faith system, the Judeo-Christian
culture that supports the plurality of belief as long as it
39
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falls under the category of "Protestant," "Catholic," or
"Jew." Moreover, Herberg identified an overarching faith
in this American Way of life that gives unity to so diverse
a nation.
Bellah enriched the concept of civil religion with
three later works. The first was the article "American
Civil Religion in the 1970s" from the Anglican Theological
Review (1973). In that article Bellah remarked upon the
widespread acceptance and use of the phrase "civil religion
in America" from its appearance in essays, books, symposia,
and the New York Times and other newspapers. The second
work. The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time
of Trial (1975), grew out of Bellah's ideas presented at
the Weil Lectures at Hebrew Union College in late 1971.
This work is particularly relevant for rhetorical
scholarship. In it Bellah described the ways in which
religious symbolism and religious ideas have shaped the
debates about our national origins and history. Bellah's
latest work. Habits of the Heart. Individualism and
Commitment in American Life (1985), was a sociological
study of contemporary American life. The focus of the
study included the identity, character, and mores of the
American people. These beliefs function like topoi, the
consensual building blocks of communal discourse. Bellah
addressed the present cultural traditions and practices
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related to citizenship, religion, and the "National
Society" in this latest work.
Richard John Neuhaus has offered an additional
perspective upon the intersection of religion and politics
in American public life. In his 1984 work. The Naked
Public Square. Religion and Democracy in America. Neuhaus
questioned the practice and validity of political doctrine
and conduct "that would exclude religion and religiously
grounded values from the conduct of public business" (p.
vii). Neuhaus has offered explanations for "religious
politics" and "political religion" related to the decline
of mainline Protestantism as a primary culture-shaping
force and the increase of other religious groups—
evangelical, fundamentalist, and Catholic— to take the
place of mainline Protestantism and provide values and
moral legitimacy for democracy in America. The
metaphorical concept behind his central idea is that the
"public square" will not and cannot remain naked.
Moreover, Neuhaus has argued that: "If it is not clothed
with the 'meanings' borne by religion, new 'meanings' will
be imposed by virtue of the ambitions of the Modern State"
(1984, p. vii).
Presidential Rhetoric
The Presidency in American life is much more than just
the Chief Executive office. The President has become the
spokesperson to and for the American people in both
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domestic and international concerns. Michael Novak has
argued that the American president becomes "a prophet, a
priest, and a king" largely through the expectations and
aspirations of the American public. In his book Choosing
Our Kina: Powerful Symbols in Presidential Politics (1976)
Novak assessed the role of the president within the context
of civil-religious values. From his work as speechwriter
for Democratic presidential candidate Sargent Shriver in
1970 and then working for Edmund Muskie and later, George
McGovern in 1972, Novak gathered his insights for this
work.
Theodore Windt's Essavs in Presidential Rhetoric
(1983) and Presidential Rhetoric fl961 to the Present)
(1983), have described the President as becoming a symbol
of our national aspirations, our national mood, and our
national prestige. Much of the influence and power of an
American president, according to Windt, takes the form of
persuasion, or rhetorical power.
Robert E. Denton, Jr. has described the nature of the
Presidency from a symbolic-interactionist perspective in
his book The Symbolic Dimensions of the American
Presidency. Description and Analysis (1982) . According to
Denton, each President creates, alters, or reinforces
public and individual expectations of the office through
discourse, use of symbols, rituals, and his or her own
sense of history.
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Traditionally the study of presidential rhetoric has
focused largely upon a president's public discourse, major
speeches. Kathleen H. Jamieson's Packaging the Presidency
(1984) has offered an enlarged view of the understanding
and study of presidential rhetoric. Jamieson has argued
that modern media campaigning has greatly affected
presidential political practices with the advent and
meteoric rise of mass-media, political campaigns now
include a great deal of television advertising time to
complement the traditional public addresses and speeches,
print-media, and the televised campaign debates since 1960.
Of central importance to this study is Roderick P.
Hart's The Political Pulpit (1977). Hart has described the
nature of American civil religion through the metaphor of a
legal contract. Moreover, Hart has described the
relationship between the American public and its
politicians in terms of a rhetorical contract. A "balance"
must be maintained between government and religion
according to Hart's construct. The most significant
feature of Hart's work is his rhetorical approach to civil
religion. Hart's focus is on the enactment, reaffirmation,
and recycling of our civil/religious understanding through
political discourse. Thus Hart's political orator becomes
an active figure in changing our perception about the role
of religion in polity, in renegotiating boundaries between
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sacred and secular, and in using religious concepts to
accomplish secular objectives.
Jimmy Carter^s Political Communication
Carter's writings are valuable not only in providing
insight into his ideology, values, and world-view, but also
because of the frequent references that he made to his own
writings and ideas therein during his campaign and during
his one term in office.
In 1975 Broadman Press, a Southern Baptist publishing
house, produced Carter's first autobiography Why Not the
Best? Carter traced his own movement from his rural
background in Plains, his Annapolis training and subsequent
Navy career as a submarine officer in Admiral Rickover's
nuclear program, his return to his family's agricultural
businesses in Plains, and then his rise to the position of
governor of Georgia. Moreover, Carter described the
progress of his political career from school board to
Georgia State Senate to Governor to Presidential candidate.
William V. Shannon offered the following in his review of
the work for The New York Times Book Review;
[This book] is a skillful, simply-written blend of personal history, social description and political philosophy that makes fascinating reading .... What this book makes clear is that Carter comes out of an older, more traditional, rural society that metropolitan America has almost forgotten. He has old-fashioned values .... Critics, friendly as well as unfriendly, worry whether Jimmy Carter believes in anything larger than his own success. This book does not provide conclusive answers. As in his campaign speeches, what comes across most clearly is his sensitive feeling for black people and for the South,
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the commonality of his and their hard, church- centered, rural life. His concern for the mentally retarded and for other handicapped persons, as well as his commitment to the environmental values of unspoiled land and clean air and water also come through as genuine. (Shannon, 1976, p. 4).
Carter's A Government as Good as Its People (1977) was
a compilation of his public pronouncements beginning with
his inaugural address as Governor of Georgia in 1971 to his
inaugural address as President in 1977. A total of nine
speeches are reprinted in their entirety along with
excerpts from fifty-three more speeches and interviews.
Themes within the book included openness in government,
racial justice, promotion of human rights, the improvement
of education, a strong defense, and the control of nuclear
weapons. But the title indicated Carter's central theme
that government can be "as good as its people." Historian
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. responded to that idea in his
review of this book for The New York Times Book Review. Of
Carter and this idea Schlesinger said:
Since Mr. Carter has assured us that he would never tell a lie, one must conclude he really believes the American people to be good, honest, compassionate, etc., and filled with love. To such spacious generalizations, the historian can only respond that, on the record, some Americans are, and some aren't. . . . One curious feature of the Carter mind, as displayed in this book as well as in his auto biography, is the apparent absence of a historical dimension. (1977, p. 1)
After editing over five thousand pages of notes taken
during his one-term Presidency, Carter published his second
autobiography entitled Keeping Faith: Memories of a
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President (1982). It emphasized five main subjects:
(1) improving relations with China; (2) enacting energy
legislation; (3) negotiating the second Strategic Arms
Limitation treaty (SALT II) ; (4) concluding the Panama
Canal treaties; and (5) convincing Menachem Begin and Anwar
Sadat to reach agreement at Camp David. Almost half of the
book was devoted to the Iranian hostage crisis and the
negotiations at Camp David between Begin and Sadat.
Between the descriptions of the major events of his
presidency. Carter reminisced over the joy of his
inauguration in 1977 and the pain of his rejection in 1980
with his failed bid for re-election. Much of Keeping Faith
offers background information and detail into the Carter
Presidency and its greatest challenges and beyond the
retelling of those events emerges a strong call for
justification of that presidency and its efforts,
decisions, and accomplishments.
Summary
This chapter offered a review of literature in the
areas of American civil religion. Presidential rhetoric,
and Carter's political communication. The next chapter
will focus upon the methodology for the study.
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Methodology
Introduction
This chapter deals with the method of analysis. As
the author's method is an adaptation of generic criticism,
the chapter will begin with the work of forerunners, Edwin
Black (1965) and Lloyd Bitzer (1965), and continue with the
major practitioners, Karlyn Campbell and Kathleen Jamieson
(1970) . This discussion will include a review of the
salient features of generic criticism and culminate in a
synopsis of the work of Rod Hart. Finally, the chapter
will describe a mode of analysis arising out of and
extending Hart's work: a litmus test of civil-religious
discourse.
Forerunners
The roots of generic criticism are to be found in
Edwin Black's suggestive concept of "frames of discourse"
(1965) . Edwin Black's Rhetorical Criticism: A Studv in
Method advanced the notion that discourse can be understood
in terms of collections of rhetorical discourses that share
similar strategies (motives), situations, and effects.
Black argued that discourse could be understood in terms of
generic frame of reference. Constellations of discourse,
then, might be identified and evaluated through formal
47
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analysis. This proto-generic criticism was a foreshadowing
of his brilliant student's work (Black, 1965, pp. 132-135).
In 1965 Black identified 'situation' as one of the
elements in a generic frame of reference. Generic
criticism is predicated on the belief that certain
situations give rise to audience expectations that can be
met only by certain patterns of rhetorical acts. Later in
1968, Lloyd Bitzer argued that rhetoric was a response to a
particular kind of situation, one that invited resolution
of an exigency. Further anticipating the concept of genre,
Bitzer defined a rhetorical situation with the following
words ;
a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence. (1968, p. 8)
The exigence is something in the situation that calls for
immediate attention or action, it is marked by urgency, and
as Bitzer has theorized, the exigence calls for a "fitting
response." Discourse, then, can be understood as a
specific response to a particular situation.
Practitioners and Salient Features
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Edwin Black's advisee, and
Karlyn Kohrs Campbell established a definition of genre; "a
classification based on the fusion and interrelation of
elements in such a way that a unique kind of rhetorical act
is created" (Campbell & Jamieson, 1978, p. 3). Jackson
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Harrell and Wil A. Linkugel, Kansas colleagues of Karlyn
Campbell, have described this internal dynamic as an
'organizing principle.' Harrell and Linkugel argued that
the nature of rhetorical genre is based upon the
observation that "rhetorical genres stem from organizing
principles found in recurring situations that generate
discourse characterized by a family of common factors"
(Campbell & Jamieson, 1978, p. 3).
A body of discourse can be understood as a genre not
only because it may contain certain recognizable forms, but
because these elements are fused together by an internal
dynamic, an organizing principle. Genres, then, are more
than collections of elements displaying similarity, they
are collections of elements that work together to form a
dynamic, indivisible whole. This internal dynamic fuses
together the stylistic, substantive, and situational
characteristics of discourse. The elements of style,
substance or content, and situation are understood more
fully under the notion of genre based on the argument 'to
know form is to know content.' Black, Campbell, Jamieson,
and others have demonstrated the utility and explanatory
power of generic criticism. Particularly beneficial is the
emphasis on the substantive and stylistic requirements of a
rhetorical situation.
The focus upon motive as described in terms of an
internal dynamic or organizing principle will offer
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understanding of the selection of rhetorical strategies
employed by the rhetor. Contemporary rhetorical criticism
has shifted from the traditional "speaker-audience"
orientation toward a broader perspective of the interplay
between rhetor, discourse, exigence, and situation.
Examples of some of the classifications of rhetorical
genre would include: eulogy; political apology;
expositional sermon; letters of resignation; post-game
statements from an athlete or coach; campaign speeches; and
a Presidential State of the Union address. Each of these
types of discourse is composed of recognizable forms,
combined in an interrelated manner, and bound together by
an internal dynamic related to the motive of the rhetor,
all of which produce a unique type of rhetorical form, a
fitting response to an exigence in the larger situation.
Examples of recent studies in generic criticism include:
Ware and Linkugel's "They Spoke in Defense of Themselves,
On the Generic Criticism of Apologia;" Martin's "A Generic
Exploration : Staged Withdrawal, the Rhetoric of
Resignation;" Ritter's "American Political Rhetoric and the
Jeremiad Tradition: Presidential Nomination Acceptance
Addresses, 1960-1976;" and Kruse's "Apologia in Team Sport"
(Brock & Scott, 1980, pp. 396-420).
In her recent work. Rhetorical Theory and Practice
(1989), Sonja K. Foss explored the epistemic dimension of
generic criticism. She argued that the study of genres
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enables critics to understand the construction of social
reality through rhetorical discourse (p. 112). Thus,
generic discourse reflects the cultural axiology, the
conventional images, commonplaces and dominant style
features of a community. Further, social reality is both
enacted and recycled in generic discourse (p. 112).
According to Karlyn Khors Campbell in Critiques of
Contemporary Rhetoric (1972) such carefully formed
rhetorical discourse has five typical charcteristics (pp.
1-4).
(1) Rhetorical discourse is designed and created, understood as prose discourse which is 'planned and structured in such a consistent and coherent fashion as to justify and announce certain conclusions.' (2) Rhetorical discourse is problem solving; the substance of rhetoric is not information, but the evaluation of information. It is concerned with the values that individuals and societies should adopt. Rhetoric, then, is advisory, for directly or indirectly it gives advice, takes a position, evaluates, and judges. (3) Rhetorical discourse is public, addressed to others because it deals with circumstances and conditions that demand collective action. (4) Rhetorical discourse is practical, it is characterized by its instrumentality, by its intent to produce alterations in attitude and actions. (5) Rhetorical discourse is poetic— meaning the degree to which a discourse displays ritualistic, aesthetic, dramatic, and emotive qualities.
Moreover, Campbell argued that the general public expects
rhetoric "to build to a climax, to heighten conflict, to
leave us with a sense of closure, and to move us by
speaking to our experiences and feelings (Campbell, 1972,
p. 4) . Further Campbell asserted that "the degree to which
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a rhetorical discourse evinces poetic qualities will
directly affect the size of the potential audience now, and
in the future, and the nature and intensity of the response
evoked" (Campbell, 1972, p. 4) . Naturally a politician or
a President would be concerned about such matters as size
and stability of audience and the measure of their
response.
The rhetorical analyst contributes to the process of
analysis by imposing certain interpretive frameworks upon
the study. For example, the author will draw upon his
knowledge of the evangelical tradition, his detailed
understanding of sermonic invention, and upon information
gathered from a literature review on American civil
religion and Presidential rhetoric to aid him in the
interpretation of Carter's discourse.
In general, this study is consistent with the three
stage critical protocol outlined in Karlyn Khors Campbell
in Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric (1972) . In
Campbell's three-stage process:
(1) The critic locates the unique characteristics of a discourse or group of discourses. (2) The critic analyzes the internal workings of the discourse and its relation to its milieu. (3) The critic selects or creates a system of criticism to make evaluative judgments of its quality and effects, (p. 13).
Descriptive analysis, the first stage, is almost entirely
intrinsic and organic— the focus is upon the discourse.
Historical-contextual analysis is the second stage which
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examines the extrinsic elements of discourse. The
extrinsic elements include the external limitations,
constraints, or influences on the rhetor's choice as
Campbell has described it, or the "the rhetorical
situation," as explained by Lloyd Bitzer, which emphasizes
discourse as the interplay among exigences and
environments. The second stage, then, emphasizes the goal-
directed design or the function of rhetoric that seeks to
produce specific results. The third stage is interpretive
analysis. The critic either selects or creates a system of
criticism and determines criteria for interpretation,
evaluation, and the making of final judgments on the
discourse. The critic bases such judgments upon the
intrinsic descriptive analysis of the historical-cultural
context (Campbell, 1972, p. 21).
In 1982, Jamieson and Campbell expanded their work on
genre and introduced the notion of "rhetorical hybrids."
They have defined genres as "dynamic fusions of
substantive, stylistic, and situational elements and as
constellations that are strategic responses to the demands
of the situation and the purposes of the rhetor" (p. 146).
Generic discourse, then, is the product of both the
purposes of the rhetor and the demands/exigences of the
situation. Aristotle identified three basic types of
genres: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative (Aristotle,
Rhetoric. pp. 3-4). A number of critics have noted that
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these genres often overlap and combine in practical
discourse. For example, Harold Zyskind identified the
combination of both epideictic and deliberative elements in
Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (Brock & Scott, 1980, pp.
202-212); and Michael Leff and Gerald Mohrmann have argued
for a successful fusion of deliberative and of epideictic
elements in Lincoln's address at Cooper Union (Brock &
Scott, 1980, pp. 346-348).
Jamieson and Campbell have labeled these creative
fusions and generic blends "rhetorical hybrids." The term
"rhetorical hybrid" is "a metaphor intended to emphasize
the productive but transitory character of these
combinations" (Jamieson & Campbell, 1989, p. 147). Such
hybrids may provide additional understanding of the
coherence of complex rhetorical forms. Jamieson and
Campbell have established two presuppositions related to
rhetorical hybrids:
(1) Such fusion is rule-governed, and (2) Identification of different generic elements and occasionally of whole genres within such acts allows the critic to understand how such acts work, and to predict their appearance. (1989, p. 147)
Thus, the critic can better understand the disparate
strategies. Instead of viewing them as revolts against
convention or personal aberrations, he or she might view
them as part of the heritage of the rhetorical community.
Jamieson and Campbell have illustrated the concept of
rhetorical hybrid through analysis of eulogies delivered by
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members of Congress in honor of Robert F. Kennedy, and
Lyndon Baines Johnson's 1963 Thanksgiving Day Address. A
eulogy is a type of discourse that responds to human needs
created by the death of a member of a community. As
Jamieson and Campbell note:
In Western culture, at least, a eulogy will acknowledge the death, transform the relationship between the living and the dead from present to past tense, ease the mourners' terror at confronting their own mortality, console them by arguing that the deceased lives on, and reknit the community. (1989, p. 147).
Even though the more obvious constraint in such an
occasion would be the purpose of mourning the dead, which
is clearly an epideictic genre; a deliberative genre might
be selected as well because of the need to reknit the
community. The circumstances and the strategies of the
rhetor then, determine the nature of the rhetorical hybrid.
As a result of their analyses of the Congressional eulogies
for Robert F. Kennedy, Jamieson and Campbell concluded
that:
Because the eulogist is constrained by the need to memorialize the deceased and to reknit the community, she/he cannot propose policies inconsistent with those advocated by the deceased. Consequently, eulogists who supported the legislative initiatives of the deceased are likely to call for completion of those unfinished labors; conversely, eulogists who disapproved of his/her proposals will omit the deliberative subform. (1989, p. 148)
The eulogies for Robert Kennedy were consistent with these
two principles. As they noted "colleagues who supported
Kennedy's proposals while he lived are comfortable using
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this occasion to call for their enactment as a memorial"
(Jamieson & Campbell, 1989, p. 148). For example. Senator
Javits said, "In all these causes [job training, food
programs, and firearm controls] I will feel personally
sustained and inspired— and so will millions of Americans—
because they were causes that Robert Kennedy expressed with
personal dedication" (Jamieson & Campbell, 1989, p. 148) .
Further it was noted that "colleagues ideologically opposed
to Kennedy did not include a deliberative section in their
eulogies, but instead memorialized his integrity and
character" (p. 148). For example. Senator B. Everett
Jordan said: "I did not always agree with Senator Kennedy's
views. . . . But at the same time I respected him and
admired many of his qualities" (Jamieson & Campbell, 1989,
p. 148) .
Jamieson and Campbell have identified two basic types
of rhetorical hybrids— functional and dysfunctional. The
functional rhetorical hybrid would be artistically
satisfying and structurally operating as an organic whole—
as in this case— "the eulogy incorporating deliberative
appeals which are subordinate to the eulogy, whose motives
do not appear self-serving, and whose advocacy will not
divide the audience or community" (Jamieson & Campbell,
1989, p. 149). The genre of the eulogy is the predominant
form while the deliberative appeals remain subordinate.
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Jamieson and Campbell conclude about congressional eulogies
that:
(1) In eulogistic settings, one generic form predominates; (2) Fusions are not invariably successful; (3) Hybrids are called forth by complex situations and purposes and as such, are transitory and situation-bound. (1989, p. 154)
Of course, rhetorical hybrids that occur with some
regularity may create formal expectancies on the part of
some audiences. For example. Presidential inaugurals,
hybrids whose fusions are sustained by recurrent
situations, combine constant epideictic elements such as
establishing unity after a divisive campaign, or appeals to
traditional values, with deliberative elements such as
outlining the philosophy of the new administration and
setting its agenda.
One of the most ambitious and thorough scholars of
generic criticism is Roderick P. Hart. Hart has taken
Jamieson and Campbell's essentially literary categories and
extended them to include a discourse tradition, American
civil religion. While Hart's work on the Presidential
Inaugural as a highly constrained oratorical form is
impressive, the author has turned to Hart's earlier work.
The Political Pulpit (1977), to develop a method of
analysis that would reveal the nature and variety of
symbolic breeches of the historic separation of Church and
State. Categories of analysis which are implicit, but
undeveloped in Hart's work will be defined and synthesized
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as a method of rhetorical analysis suitable to the author's
aims.
Rod Hart has defined American civil religion as the
ritualized maintenance of the contract between religion and
government. Accordingly, American civil-religious
discourse is the public expression of the contractual
enactment of this sacred/secular understanding. This
balance between the state and an increasingly pluralistic
religious heritage is constantly affirmed, re-enacted, and
gradually re-negotiated through American civil-religious
discourse. Given the honorific, yet separate, status of
religion, it follows that Hart's American civil-religious
discourse is conventionally abstract, banishing religious
speech to a safe transcendence. However, the opportunity
for a leader to violate the norms of the discourse is
always present and potentially explosive. Thus, Hart's
political rhetor becomes a potentially influential figure
who might change our perception of the role of religion in
polity, in negotiating boundaries between sacred and
secular, and in using religious concepts to accomplish
secular objectives.
Hart's "Rhetorical Contract" model is built upon three
basic presuppositions:
(1) Religion is capable of providing an ultimate meaning system for its adherents. (2) Government is able to exert coercive power upon the affairs of its citizens. (3) Both government and religion wield considerable
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rhetorical power within their respective sectors and across sectors. (1977, p. 53)
Much of this rhetorical power for both government and
religion exists in the form of public discourse. The
existence of American civil religion in political discourse
does not occur by mere accident or circumstance. Political
rhetors routinely use civil-religious discourse for their
mundane purposes. Hart expressed such strategic employment
in the following;
For as one looks at the amount and intensity of civil-religious discourse in America, one may be impressed by what seems to be the unerring rhetorical choreography exhibited by religious and governmental spokesmen alike. The timing, phrasing, and elegance of our national prayers appear to emanate from persons who know full well their roles in the rhetorical chorus line. Civic piety, in America at least, emerges not as much from blind, momentary passion, but from a knowing, practiced, thoroughly pragmatic understanding of the suasory arabesques demanded when God and country kick up their heels rhetorically. (1977, p. 45)
The practice of American civil religion is, then, a
daunting task. Government practitioners know that they
will be scrutinized during their civil-religious
utterances.
Hart has identified five traits associated with
contemporary American civil-religious discourse:
(1) It achieves its fullest expression during moments of crisis. (2) It taps a dimension— religion— that is rhetorically compelling for many Americans. (3) It reduces inordinately complex issues to their most basic, patently religious, understructures. (4) It reaffirms the coordinated, but separate, roles men and God play in the affairs of this
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nation. (5) Its grand abstractness creates a totemic structure around which Americans may happily rally. (1977, p. 47)
Hart has described the nature of the negotiation
between the political and religious arenas through the use
of a legal metaphor— the rhetorical contract. This
rhetorical contract has four constituent features:
(1) The guise of complete separation between Government and Religion will be maintained by both parties. (2) The guise of existential equality between Government and Religion will be maintained by both parties, but Religion's realm will be solely that of the rhetorical. (3) Government rhetoric will refrain from being overly religious and Religion's rhetoric will refrain from being overly political. (4) Neither of the aforementioned parties shall, in any fashion whatsoever, make known to the general populace the exact teirms of the contract. (1977, p. 44)
Mode of Analvsis: A Litmus Test
In defining civil-religious discourse. Hart noted that
violations of its conventions signalled a breach of the
historic contract between Church and State. Hart has not
fully developed these violations as a concrete order of
discourse. He indicated that because of the pluralistic
nature of American religion, the particular discourse
features would vary from one religious message to another.
However, the generic character of this discourse is clear.
First, Hart has asserted that civil-religious discourse
makes reference to the deity in a non-denominational mode.
"The Great Judge," or "The Supreme Law-Giver" would be
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acceptable, for example, while "Redeemer" would not be
acceptable because of its specifically Christian, even
evangelical, referent. Secondly, moral ideas must be
abstract; they must not exhibit the religious, historic, or
institutional features of a particular denominational
context. Thirdly, civil-religious discourse must not
contradict the American myth of the State as articulated in
every presidential inaugural prayer: i.e., that America is
a nation with a special destiny as a moral exemplar; that
our executive is blessed; and that God will intervene in
history on our behalf.
Presumably, then, a president or presidential
candidate who violated the conventions of civil-religious
discourse would be one who spoke in a way that suggested
special recognition of a specific theology, whose
references to God connoted a particular tradition, and who
used rhetorical formats that violated the myth of the State
e.g., a jeremiad that denied America's destiny or a
prophetic structure that denigrated the nation's capacity
for moral renewal.)
In summary, while Hart treats these violations on a
purely generic level, his discussion of civil-religion
leaves little doubt as to the identity of the essential
violations. These violations are of at least three kinds:
(1) Nominal - Names of God that are not generic, but
evoke a particular tribal or denominational
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identity.
(2) Doctrinal - Ideas or images that are
characteristic of a recognizable religious
tradition.
(3) Structural - The use of established religious,
strategic formats, such as the jeremiad. These
formats have few or no rhetorical antecedents in
political discourse and are not fully congruent
with our civil-religious myth of America.
The use of these three textual benchmarks of civil-
religious orthodoxy will be used to alert the critic to the
presence or absence of violations. In addition, the critic
will be able to note the nature, kind and frequency of the
violations. Finally, the critic's association with
contemporary American religion will aid him in locating the
identity of the religious names, ideas, and strategies, and
clues as to the identity of the audience (s) that are
constructed by the religious choices embedded in the text.
On a processual level, the critic will proceed through
three phases:
(1) What? What are the nominal, doctrinal and
structural violations in the selected texts?
(2) How? How do the violations function within
their linguistic and political contexts?
(3) Whv? What are the consequences for Carter, for
the nature and conventions of presidential
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discourse and for American political
communication in general?
Summary
This chapter has dealt with the theoretical background
and general features of the critical methodology. A
subsequent chapter (Evaluation) will illustrate its range
and function.
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Selection of Discourse
Introduction and Rationale
This chapter will deal with the selection and
justification of texts. First, it will explain the reasons
for selection. Then it will detail the specific speeches
to be analyzed and provide brief synopses of each.
There are four reasons for selection as follows:
(1) Speeches in which Carter reveals his conception
of the role of the citizen in quasi-religious
terms.
(2) Speeches in which Carter articulates his
conception of America's historic mission in
spiritual and moral terms.
(3) Speeches in which Carter justifies his
specific programs in moral terms.
(4) Speeches that contain references to the moral
dimension of government in general.
Thus the speeches chosen are either generic speeches
in which Carter must speak broadly about the nature of
government or speeches in which Carter must justify a
particularly vital program. At such times a president must
either define the nature of governance or reveal the moral
compass of his specific actions. Thus I have chosen two
kinds of speeches:
64
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(1) Ceremonial Speeches
(2) Crisis Speeches
Based upon the criteria of the four reasons for
selection and the two types of speeches, I have identified
nine major speeches for this particular study. The
following collection of discourse has met the requirements
of both significance and representative nature based upon
the following considerations. First, the collection is
expansive, covering the time span of 1974 to 1979 — the
period in which Carter was both a candidate and a
President. Second, these particular speeches represent
discourse responding to situations of both domestic and
foreign concerns and crises. Third, these addresses
represent symbolically- important recurring contexts such
as the Inaugural Address, State of the Union Address, and
the "fireside chat." Such contexts often give rise to
either ceremonial speeches or crisis speeches. Fourth,
within these speeches Carter reveals his religious
perspective: the role of the citizen in quasi-religious
terms; America's historic mission in spiritual and moral
terms; justification for specific programs in moral terms;
and the moral dimension of government. Fifth, the number,
significance, and diversity of these nine major addresses
will provide both insight and information relative to the
objectives of this study.
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Nine major speeches
1. December 12, 1974, "For America's Third Century,
Why Not the Best?" delivered before the National
Press Club, Washington, D.C.
2. July 15, 1976, Acceptance Speech, Democratic
National Convention, New York.
3. January 20, 1977, Inaugural Address, "The Ever-
Expanding American Dream," Washington, D.C.
4. February 2, 1977, Fireside Chat, "Unity on U.S.
Goals," delivered to the American people, the White
House, Washington, D.C.
5. April 18, 1977, "The Moral Equivalent of War,"
delivered to the American people, the White House,
Washington, D.C.
6. September 18, 1978, "The Possibility of Peace,"
Camp David Meeting on the Middle East, delivered before
a Joint Session of the United States Congress,
Washington, D.C.
7. January 23, 1979, State of the Union Address, delivered
before a Joint Session of the United States Congress,
Washington, D.C.
8. March 26, 1979, "Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty,"
delivered at the White House, Washington, D.C.
9. July 15, 1979, "The Erosion of Confidence," delivered
to the Nation, the White House, Washington, D.C.
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Background
(1) December 12, 1974, "For America's Third Century,
Why Not Our Best?"
As Governor of the State of Georgia, Jimmy Carter
delivered this address before the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C. Within this speech. Carter sought to
identify himself not only to the members of the press, but
also to the Nation and to articulate his vision for
America. Carter's introduction of himself with a litany of
"identities" would later become commonplace in his
presidential campaign discourse— "I am a farmer, an
engineer, a businessman, a planner, a scientist, a
governor, and a Christian."
Carter's vision for America was to return government
to the people, for politicians to regain public trust by
being trustworthy, and for "government to be as good as its
people." Particular concerns included the federal
bureaucracy, energy, tax inequities, poverty, health care,
education, agriculture, national security, and the arms
race. The title of the address and one of his appeals
throughout is the phrase— "Why not the best?"— which was
the challenge given to Carter during his service in the
Navy by Admiral Hyman Rickover. That particular challenge
would become not only a campaign appeal but also the title
of Carter's first biography published in 1975.
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(2) July 15, 1976, Acceptance Speech, Democratic National
Convention, New York.
As Newsweek featured Carter that convention week in
1976: "He stood in the hot light of Madison Square Garden,
a world away from his red-dust beginnings, and said mildly:
"My name is Jimmy Carter and I'm running for President.'
It was a measure of the distance he had run that he still
needed some introducing to the 5,000 Democrats assembled in
unnatural peace and uneasy unity at his feet" (Matthews,
Lindsay, Harper, & Sciolino, 1976, p. 16).
Within this address. Carter accepted the nomination
from the Democratic Party as their presidential candidate
for the 1976 campaign against the Republican incumbent
President Gerald Ford. Carter identified himself with John
F. Kennedy and then other Democratic presidents— Franklin
D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Carter reviewed the recent history of the Vietnam War and
Watergate in the context of advocating that "it is now a
time for healing." He then articulated his vision for
government, then his vision for America.
An additional strategy, often typical within a
national political party acceptance speech especially if
there has been party divisions, is to seek for
reconciliation and a call to rally behind the party and the
candidate. Carter proved no exception in this regard.
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(3) January 20, 1977, Inaugural Address, "The Ever-
Expanding American Dream."
After defeating Gerald Ford by a narrow margin in the
1976 Presidential election. Carter took his oath of office
and delivered his inaugural address to the nation from its
capital, Washington, D.C. The inauguration of our nation's
President is clearly a ceremonial event resembling somewhat
the crowning of a monarch.
Daniel J. Boorstin has described the importance of the
Presidential inaugural as "our only American ritual." Of
this event Boorstin has said:
In the United States, where we have no hereditary sovereign, we are hard put to ritualize the majority voice. Our best effort is expressed in the inauguration. On this occasion, the President performs the only ritual required by the Constitution — to recite a 35-word oath, or affirmation: 'I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.' The inaugural address, following the traditional oath, charts a democratic crossroad between past and future. Since George Washington's first inaugural, the President beginning a new term announces his large hopes and intentions to enlist support of the whole citizenry. (Boorstin, 1989, p. 35)
Typically within the inaugural address a president
articulates at least the following: his or her vision for
the coming term of office and particular goals in terms of
domestic policy and foreign affairs. Moreover, according
to the research of Robert Bellah and Rod Hart, without
exception presidential inaugurals have contained civil-
religious appeals as well. Such appeals might come in the
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following forms: specific acknowledgement of our "chosen
nation" status; the seeking of God's guidance, favor, or
blessing; the moral or spiritual role that America is to
exercise in the world; instructions and inspiration for the
citizenry. (Bellah, 1967, pp. 1-21; Hart, 1977, pp. 1-2).
Carter's inaugural was consistent with the typical
format, yet he went beyond the standard "generic" civil-
religious content of his predecessors in a number of
significant instances. Within the inaugural. Carter spoke
of the enduring "American dream," highlighting the values
of faith, spirituality, competence, compassion, and moral
strength.
In an attempt to demythologize the "imperial
presidency," create a "common man" appeal, and to
strengthen the message of their accessibility to the
people. President and Mrs. Carter chose to walk to the
inaugural site from the White House rather than take the
customary limousine ride. Furthermore, Carter selected
Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" as his
inaugural music.
(4) February 2, 1977, Fireside Chat, "Unity on U.S.
Goals"
Carter delivered this speech to the public from the
White House. The "fireside chat" has become an important
rhetorical vehicle for presidents to use as they strive to
marshal public support for their decisions, policies, or
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programs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt often rallied support
from the American people through his national radio
broadcasts from the White House. These broadcasts were
largely informal in tone and they became known as "fireside
chats.”
This particular rhetorical form differs from the
highly ritualized inaugural address and the codified State
of the Union address which are both significantly formal
speeches with large audiences present. The fireside chat
has become a form wherein the president can send a personal
message to the American people, particularly in times of
crisis at home or abroad.
Carter took advantage of this particular vehicle, the
fireside chat, early in his term, within two weeks of his
inauguration. Within this speech. Carter outlined several
of his key objectives related to his campaign promises.
These objectives were: (1) development of a national energy
policy; (2) restoration of the nation's economy; (3)
reorganization of the federal government; (4) tax reform;
(5) education; (6) welfare; and (7) foreign policy
concerns.
(5) April 18, 1977, "President's Energy Policy— The Moral
Equivalent of War."
Carter addressed the Nation over television and radio
from the White House two days prior to his address to the
Joint Session of Congress. Both speeches focused upon the
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energy crisis and Carter's comprehensive national energy
proposals.
In this address to the American people. Carter
reviewed some of the history of the problems that have
created and moreover, escalated the energy crisis. Then he
outlined the ten fundamental principles upon which the
national energy plan was based.
Furthermore, Carter listed seven specific energy
program goals set for 1985. Carter concluded this speech
with an admission of the potential unpopularity of the
program and a call for sacrifice on the part of all.
(6) September 18, 1978, "The Possibility of Peace."
After two weeks of meetings at Camp David with
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem
Begin of Israel, Carter delivered this address before a
Joint Session of the United States Congress at the Capitol,
Washington, D.C.
Peace in the Middle East was the goal of the Camp
David meetings and negotiations. Carter had served as the
host and mediator of these meetings between Anwar Sadat and
Menachem Begin.
Within this particular address. Carter explained the
four main issues that had divided Egypt and Israel and the
subsequent Camp David agreements related to each issue.
Carter not only informed the Congress of the Camp David
accomplishments thus far, moreover he sought their support
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for these two leaders, their countries, and their efforts
toward a lasting peace in the Middle East.
(7) January 23, 1979, State of the Union Address
It is traditional for a President to deliver a "State
of the Union" address within the first weeks of each
calendar year in office. This address is usually delivered
before the joint session of the United States Congress at
the Capitol. Since the advent of radio and television, the
American public has had the opportunity to participate in
this event.
Typically, this address is largely an assessment of
the "status quo" of the nation from the perspective of the
President. Moreover, it is often accompanied by a progress
report on particular programs or objectives. The State of
the Union address might also be used as a forum by the
President toward Congressional and public support.
In this address Carter dealt with a number of key
issues including the following seven issues: (1) inflation;
(2) unemployment; (3) rising health care costs; (4) the
1980 budget; (5) foreign policy; (6) SALT II; and (7) human
rights, both at home and abroad. Carter's overall
assessment was indicated by his statement— "there is every
sign that the state of our Union is sound."
(8) March 26, 1979, "Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty."
Carter, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and Prime
Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, delivered a series of
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three speeches on March 26, 1979 at the White House. This
historic occasion was the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian
Peace Treaty which had resulted from the Camp David
meetings hosted by President Carter.
Carter's speech recognized the significance of this
historic moment; he reviewed some of the history of the
Middle East related to war, and offered his personal
tribute to both Sadat and Begin for their work toward peace
between Egypt and Israel. Furthermore, Carter offered a
challenge to the Arab world to work together for a
permanent peace in the Middle East.
(9) July 15, 1979, "The Erosion of Confidence."
This particular speech is considered one of Carter's
most controversial addresses; it has often been labeled
"the malaise speech." It was delivered to the nation from
Washington, D.C. on July 15, 1979.
Carter's approval ratings in the opinion polls had
plunged to about 25% at this time (Gustainis, 1990, p. 3) .
From a rhetorical perspective, and certainly a political
one. Carter needed to seize this opportunity to marshall
public support and improve his credibility with both
Washington and the public.
A significant factor in the context of this situation
was that Carter had cancelled his previously announced July
5th energy speech and he somewhat mysteriously withdrew for
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ten days to Camp David for consultation with government,
business, religious, and community leaders.
In this speech. Carter characterized and summarized
the statements that he had received at Camp David from the
people as "Mr. President, we are confronted with a moral
and spiritual crisis" (Carter, 1979, p. 643). Specific
issues itemized by Carter as part of that crisis included;
(1) energy; (2) lost confidence in the future by the
American people; (3) lost faith in Government by the
American people; (4) and special interest groups and
Congress. Carter then identified his six-point energy
plan.
Summary
This chapter dealt with the selection and
justification of speech texts. The four criteria for
selection were identified. The nine speeches selected were
listed with a contextual background offered for each
speech. The next chapter will be the analysis of these
speeches.
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Analysis of Discourse
Introduction
This chapter has two tasks: (1) To catalog the
nominal, doctrinal, and structural violations of the civil-
religious tradition in the nine speech texts; and (2) To
evaluate the rhetorical function of those violations within
the context ot the speech events and their implications for
the Carter presidency and for presidential discourse in
general.
Carter's rhetorical choices clearly indicate a unique
and creative use of American civil religion. His usage is
unconventional and he seems to be extending the boundaries
that characterize the norms of civil-religious discourse.
Nominal Violations - Names of God that are not
generic, but evoke a particular tribal or denominational
identity. An example of a nominal violation would be a
reference to God as "Redeemer” or "Creator."
Doctrinal Violations - Ideas or images that are
characteristic of a recognizable religious tradition. An
example of a doctrinal violation would be to identify
oneself as "a Christian" or to address a political audience
with the reference "brothers and sisters."
Structural Violations - The use of established
religious, strategic formats, such as the jeremiad. The
76
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use of Biblical texts in an expository manner would also be
a structural violation.
NOMINAL VIOLATIONS
When he spoke before the National Press Club in
Washington, D. C. on December 12, 1974 Carter was
presenting himself and his vision for America. His self
introduction with a litany of "identities" would become
commonplace in his presidential campaign discourse that
would follow this first national address. Carter said of
himself: "I am a farmer, an engineer, a businessman, a
planner, a scientist, a governor, and a Christian" (Carter,
December 12, 1974, p. 214.) Carter's identification of
himself as "a Christian" clearly signaled a particular
perspective toward God - the Christian God. The God named
by Carter was not Will Herberg's conceptualization of the
transcendent "Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish" God of a
pluralistic nation, but rather an evangelical, Christian
God; it certainly was not a god of the other religious
traditions of the East.
Moreover, in this 1974 address Carter characterized
God as the Creator God who is still active in the affairs
of humankind, not the "Watchmaker" God who left the world
to its own demise:
We are still floundering and equivocating about protection of our environment. Neither designers of automobiles, mayors of cities, power companies, farmers, nor those of us who simply want to breathe
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the air, love beauty, and would like to fish or swim in pure water have the slightest idea in God's world what is coming out of Washington next. What does come next must be a firm commitment to pure air, clean water, and unspoiled land. (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 215)
Carter's 'Christian' God was not only present and active,
but the world was his possession - "in God's world". This
reference is a clear indication of Carter's spiritual
world-view, in sharp contrast to the secular world-view
prevailing among most of the political establishment.
Carter's characterization of God can be understood best
through his particular religious tradition, Christianity.
The doctrine of the incarnation wherein "God became flesh"
and came to the earth in the form of Christ in order to
reconcile the world is a fundamental doctrine within the
Christian tradition. Within this tradition God "in Christ"
is not only active in the world, in the affairs of persons,
but also the ultimate sovereign ruler of this world. This
concept of an incarnate God is quite different from a
Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or other generalized concepts of God.
In his presidential inaugural address on January 20,
1977, Carter implicitly characterized God as a 'companion'
God with the Old Testament Biblical quotation from the
ancient prophet Micah (Micah 6:8):
He has shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
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The contextual framework for understanding the meaning of
the quotation of Micah 6:8 includes the biblical account of
Creation in Genesis chapters 1 - 3 wherein God walked with
Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. From Genesis 3: 8-10,
a text in the Pentateuch to which the prophet Micah in all
probability would have had access, such an antecedent form
of "walking with God" can be found:
And when they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and when the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?' And he said, 'I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.' (Genesis 3: 8-10, N.A.S.B., pp. 3-4)
From a literal interpretation, before the Fall people could
walk with God and have direct access to the Divine. After
the Fall, such a relationship or "walk" was available only
through faith. For example, Abraham, the central patriarch
of Christianity because of his faith, was described as a
"friend of God." Thus "to walk" with God can be understood
in either a literal sense or metaphorically. The concept
of "walk" implied daily interaction, guidance, strength,
and support from God.
The implication that one could "walk" with God
indicated a "personal God" with the emphasis that
evangelical Christians place upon a "personal relationship"
with God in Christ through faith. Throughout his campaign
and presidency. Carter would invoke the name and the image
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of a personal God in reference to daily life, prayer,
faith, character, morality, sustenance, and inspiration.
Keith V. Erickson has reported of Carter that "God would
help him formulate answers to national and international
policy questions" (Erickson, 1980, p. 221). From an
evangelical Christian perspective such faith in God goes
beyond belief in a God to a relationship or "walk" with
God. Even as a metaphor, the concept of "a walk with God"
was quite powerful and one that persons from other
religious traditions would find quite unacceptable. For
example, such an anthropomorphic characterization of God
would have been alien to persons of the Islamic tradition.
Carter illustrated this idea of a walk with God in his
withdrawal and search for meaning after his loss in his
first attempt at the office of governor and in his
meditations over his decision to make a run for the
pres idency.
Even in his most ecumenical moments. Carter's rhetoric
resonated of American Protestantism. This message form and
selection would have sounded eclectic to the secular press,
but it would have been met with identification by his co
religionists. It is a truism that meaning is a function of
context, and for large numbers of American Protestants,
Carter's words had a special charge. Moreover, Carter's
strategic employment of biblical references and quotations,
along with his allegiance to the Christian faith, would
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have so identified him with his own religious tradition
that such rhetorical actions actually superseded his
ecumenical attempts.
On September 18, 1978 Carter spoke to a joint session
of the United States Congress at the Capitol informing the
members of Congress about the negotiations of the Camp
David Accords. He had just spent two weeks at Camp David
with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister
Menachem Begin of Israel in order to secure peace in the
Middle East. He closed the address to Congress with two
biblical references. The first passage was part of Psalm
85, from the Old Testament, a document common to Judaism,
Islam, and Christianity:
Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? I will hear what God the Lord will speak; for he will speak peace unto his people, and unto his saints; but let them not return again unto folly. (Psalm 85, Carter, September 18, 1978, p. 4)
It would appear that Carter had attempted to emphasize the
similarities and common ground among the three nations, and
the three religious traditions, assembled at Camp David.
And he did the same again in Washington, D.C., particularly
through the prefatory remark offered before the recitation
of the part of Psalm 85: "The prayers at Camp David were
the same as those of the shepherd King David" (Carter,
September 18, 1978, p. 4).
Ironically and unfortunately. Carter may have
jeopardized that acknowledgment of similarity when he
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juxtaposed that previous sentiment and the Old Testament
passage with the following statement:
And I would like to say, as a Christian, to these two friends of mine, the words of Jesus, 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be the children of God'. (Carter, September 18, 1978, p. 4)
Not only did Carter clearly align himself with his own
particular religious tradition by the statement - "And I
would like to say, as a Christian . . . then he offered
a quotation from the New Testament Gospel of Matthew
(Matthew 5:9). The New Testament is a document that is not
accepted by the three religious traditions present in this
negotiation effort. From a rhetorical perspective.
Carter's ecumenical beginning was clearly undermined by his
partisan identification as a Christian and by his
employment of a New Testament Biblical reference. Students
of presidential rhetoric might profess to find some
parallel in the international discourse of Woodrow Wilson
regarding the League of Nations. Wilson's High Church
rhetoric has an abstract patriarchal sound compared to
Carter's very personal and religious discourse. Wilson's
world-historical religious prose, for all its grandeur, had
a spaciousness that prevented it from violating civil-
religious norms. Then, too, Wilson spoke in a time not
long removed from America's era of Protestant hegemony.
Almost a year and a half later. Carter, Sadat, and
Begin met at the White House, on March 26, 1979 to
commemorate the historic signing of the peace treaty, the
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Camp David Accords. Each of the three national leaders
spoke that day.
On this occasion Carter selected a reading from the
Koran and then a passage from the Old Testament prophet
Isaiah (Isaiah 2:4):
In the Koran we read: 'But if the enemy inclines toward peace, do thou also incline toward peace. And trust in God, for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things.' And the Prophet Isaiah said: 'Nations shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift sword against nation. Neither shall they l e a m war any more.' (Carter, March 26, 1979, p. 387)
It could be argued that Carter attempted to balance the use
of the Koran with the subsequent passage from the Bible,
the sacred text from his own tradition, Christianity.
Carter's concluding statements, however, appear to be
more inclusive: "We pray God, we pray God together that
these dreams will come true" (Carter, March 26, 1979, p.
387) . Strangely, Carter followed that inclusive sentiment
about prayers and dreams coming true with his own
commentary - "I believe they will" (Carter, p. 387) .
Carter's declaration of "I believe they will" was not an
expression of the power of positive thinking or secular
optimism. From Carter's religious system the declaration
of "I believe" would have meant potential or probable
achievement, an affirmation of the will of God in this
situation. Political language, it has been argued, is
coded language. If so, "I believe" is a statement laden
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with special meaning for evangelical constituents. Such
declaration of belief is central to evangelical
Christianity wherein God responds to that belief and
intervenes in human history on behalf of those who believe.
That simple phrase "I believe" would have had powerful
meaning for persons from a similar religious background,
particularly other evangelicals. Favor with God, in this
tradition, is secured through faith and belief.
In his most controversial speech, often called the
"Malaise speech," Carter addressed the nation on July 15,
1979. Carter had made energy policy central to his program
and his earlier efforts had had little effect. He had
presented four major speeches to the nation on energy and
his administration had been working on energy policy
legislation in Congress with little success since the very
first part of his term in office. The circumstances and
the content of this speech were quite controversial. To
the surprise of the nation, the press, and most of his own
staff. Carter had canceled what would have been his fifth
energy speech. He offered no explanation and for ten days
held an informal "domestic summit" with members of Congress
and with business and religious leaders. Carter's pollster
Patrick Caddell had attributed his drop in the opinion
polls to a growing dissatisfaction and pessimism among the
American public and called such a "crisis of confidence."
Robert A. Strong has reported that during this period of
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time "the president's positive performance rating in
opinion polls had fallen to 25% - lower than those recorded
for Richard Nixon at the depths of Watergate" and that "a
poll taken by CBS and the New York Times within days of the
tenth anniversary of Chappaquiddick found that 53% of those
who identified themselves as Democrats preferred Edward
Kennedy as the party's nominee in 1980. Only 13% preferred
Jimmy Carter" (Strong, 1986, pp. 636-637). Carter's
withdrawal to Camp David was much like a religious retreat,
a search for understanding and meaning in this crisis of
confidence. This retreat featured religious persons like
Reverend Jesse Jackson and ordinary citizens who could
bring testimony about the problems in their towns.
Strong's analysis of this event included the following
commentary: "In a unique twist to modem political public
relations, the president of the United States attracted
national attention by not going on television" (Strong,
1986, p. 637). After the ten-day domestic summit at Camp
David, Carter "gave a speech that was only partly about
energy and is now remembered for its discussion of
"malaise" - a word that does not appear in its text"
(Strong, p. 637). While this speech seemingly focused upon
energy problems and energy policy. Carter clearly indicated
that the real problem was a "crisis of confidence" that he
had 'heard' and understood from the American people,
especially during his 'retreat' to Camp David. Violations
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of civil-religious discourse are particularly prevalent
throughout this speech. Three of these violations are of
the nominal category.
As Carter spoke of his interpretation of the role as
president in the introductory paragraph of this speech
text, he offered an implicit "suffering servant" image: "I
promised to you a President who is not isolated from the
people, who feels your pain and shares your dreams and who
draws his strength and his wisdom from you" (Carter, July
15, 1979, p. 642) . It could be argued that a primary
influence upon Carter's perception as a president "who
feels your pain" was the concept and characterization of
God as a "suffering servant" in Isaiah Chapter 53. The Old
Testament prophet Isaiah described God, and prophetically
God in the incarnate form of Christ, in the following
manner: "Surely our griefs He bore, and our sorrows He
carried" (Isaiah 53:4, N.A.S.B., 1977, p. 925). The pain
of service is a stock image in the churches of the Southern
evangelistic tradition. Thus, those who heard Carter's
characterization of his role as a president "who feels your
pain" associated him strongly with the suffering servant
kind of God as depicted in Isaiah 53 as well as with the
tradition of a conscious imitation of Christ. Such a
humble and anthropomorphic depiction of God violated the
standard 'all-powerful God of Providence' that leads,
guides, and blesses the nation as presented by modern
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presidents, if not all American presidents, except for
Jimmy Carter. Not only would a 'suffering servant God' be
unacceptable to practitioners of civil religion, such a God
would be incongruous to followers of other major religions
of the world. Once again the contrast with Woodrow
Wilson's "God of Nations" is striking. Carter's
folkishness may have grated a little on the general ear.
It expressed solidarity, however, with the evangelical ear.
Within this "crisis of confidence" speech. Carter
quoted some of the advice that he had received while at
Camp David. From a religious leader Carter reported the
following counsel: "No material shortage can touch the
important things like God's love for us or our love for one
another" (Carter, July 15, 1979, p. 643). Carter's
selection of this particular message for his own speech was
indicative of Carter's spiritual world-view and the
corresponding priority of spiritual matters over material
ones. Again, Carter presented God in an anthropomorphic
manner - a God who loves. This type of characterization is
quite different from the standard generalized, abstract God
of the civil-religious tradition. He also violated the
civil-religious tradition by presenting "God's love" as a
separate entity from the material welfare of the nation.
In contrast, the 'civil-religious' God guides and blesses
the nation and his love and his bounty are seemingly
synonymous. The Deistic tradition of God's guidance offers
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a managerial, rational God who has a social contract with
us as contrasted with the organic, familial God who loves
us. The difference between a God who guides and a God who
loves expressed two ideas of community - the rational
individual contract as opposed to the tribal God, the
Father of his people. Carter's spiritual world-view was
not the secular enlightenment philosophy that sees
happiness in material and scientific terms, nor God as a
rational, gentleman-provider.
The last violation, found in the conclusion of
Carter's malaise speech, has the appearance of a seemingly
conventional reference to God. Carter said: "With God's
help and for the sake of the nation, it is time for us to
join hands in America" (Carter, July 15, 1979, p. 645).
Yet the patently religious images that surround this
reference to God included a call for "sacrifice" and a
commitment to "rebirth." It could be argued that its
placement within such an apocalyptic speech had a double
meaning, especially with the echo of joining hands to
Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (1963) image
of little children joining hands around the table of
brotherhood as a new moral and spiritual vision of America.
It must be said that these nominal violations are a
matter of the ear. They were not blatant violations that
outraged the whole body of the American people. Rather
they were ways of "naming" God that had special resonance
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for a large Bible-learned constituency. Thus, while these
names may have seemed only a little unconventional to
secular or High Church or Jewish and Roman Catholic voters,
they functioned differently for evangelicals. They said,
"I am one of you.” It was almost the equivalent of an
early Christian tracing of a fish in the hand of another or
in the dirt in second and third century Rome. Groups that
had traditionally set their faces against the world now
heard the voice of one of their own speaking from the very
seat of secular power.
DOCTRINAL VIOLATIONS
Notwithstanding the speech occasion, whether
ceremonial or crisis in nature. Carter typically employed
words, phrases, images, and ideas that were characteristic
of evangelical Christianity in general, and often
expressive of Southern Baptist ideology and doctrine in
particular. Many of the expressions are implicit, but the
code would have been understood by religious listeners,
especially evangelical ones.
For example, when Carter introduced himself to the
nation via the National Press Club on December 12, 1974, he
identified himself as "a Christian" (Carter, December 12,
1974, p. 214). For the working press, this may have
sounded like a demographic designation. For voters of the
Southern heartland, it was a sounding of the tocsin. The
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natural integration of personal faith into daily life and
conversation, typical for evangelicals and Baptists, was a
given for Carter, considering his life-long religious
background and involvement. Moreover this proclamation of
oneself as a Christian or a 'born-again' believer is an
example of the conviction, felt need, or duty to express or
to witness to one's faith, characteristic of Carter's
evangelical. Southern Baptist background and church
involvement.
In contrast to such open talk about religion and
personal faith is the tradition of the mainline Protestant
separation of public life and personal piety. Columnist
George F. Will later said of Carter and his religious
confessions: "He burns with an unfamiliar religiosity"
(Will, 1976, p. 33). Will compared Carter to mainstream
Republican incumbent Gerald Ford during the summer of 1976:
"It is possible that Carter is just the person to transform
Ford's uninspiring but unquestionable normality from a
liability to an asset" (Will, 1976, p. 33). As a
journalist. Will was the inheritor of a long tradition of
"tough mindedness." Thus Carter seemed either provincial
or strategic in his use of language. His reaction to
Carter was typical of the press.
Within the 1974 National Press Club speech, Carter
identified a number of problems facing the nation. He said
that:
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Our Nation has no understandable national purpose, no clearly defined goals, and no organizational mechanism to develop or achieve such purposes or goals. We move from one crisis to the next as if they were fads, even though the previous one hasn't been solved. (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 215)
Carter then offered a Biblical quotation as an explanation
for these conditions, without, however, offering any
context or reference to the text Carter stated:
The Bible says: 'If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle.' As a planner and a businessman, and a chief executive, I know from experience that uncertainty is also as devastating in private life and in government. (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 215)
He went on to say, "There is no clear vision of what is to
be accomplished" (Carter, p. 215). These statements about
'trumpets, battles, and vision,' probably did not translate
for listeners who did not have prior familiarity with the
Old Testament scriptures and stories of God's chosen
people, the nation of Israel, as they conquered other
peoples to establish their own sovereign land. But the
devout would have often heard the familiar warning and
rally cry - "Where there is no vision, the people perish"
(Proverbs 29:18) - from their local pulpits. Carter's
images and explanations would have been not only accessible
to them, but indeed powerful. This kind of 'vision talk'
would have referenced a number of evangelical meanings such
as setting a clearly defined 'godly' agenda for their own
lives and congregations; or aligning themselves with God's
plan; as well as preparing for Christ's 'Second Coming' to
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the Earth and the subsequent millennium. It could be
argued that such 'vision talk' would lend a kind of utopian
or 'paradise lost' sense to political goals. Other
politicians occasionally engage in this kind of talk. But
Carter's constantly publicized commitment "framed" these
remarks as the speech of an "insider." Voters heard him as
their agent, and may have been more likely to fill in
meaning for their spiritual lives. Thus, if Emerson's
Puritan assumptions remained hidden when he spoke of
transcendence. Carter's assumptions were revealed when he
talked about morals.
Toward the close of the National Press Club speech
Carter compared the present generation of Americans with
the members of the First and Second Continental Congresses.
His comparisons took the form of rhetorical questions,
several imbedded with religious ideas. Carter said;
I wondered to myself: Were they more competent, more intelligent or better educated than we? Were they more courageous? Did they have more compassion or love for their neighbors? Did they have deeper religious convictions? Were they more concerned about the future of their children than we? I think not. (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 216)
An example of that religious code was Carter's question
"Did they have more compassion or love for their
neighbors?" (Carter, p. 216) which was a direct reference
to the "first and second great commandments" from the
teachings of Christ as recorded, the Gospel of Mark,
Chapter 12, verses 28-31. "Love for neighbor," from a
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Biblical perspective, was both manifestiation and
demonstration of God's presence and love within a person's
life. Carter's religious identification here is actually a
rebuke of a contractual society where loyalty and worth are
seen as matters of individual preference. Thus virtue
replaces law, community replaces individualism, obligation
replaces rights.
Carter's "Acceptance Speech" was given on July 15,
1976 in Madison Square Garden, New York City, the capital
of secular Northern sophistication. Carter told the
convention audience that ”1976 will not be a year of
politics as usual" (Carter, July 15, 1976. p. 642) and
certainly it was not. He proposed that "Our people are
seeking new voices, new ideas, and new leaders" (Carter, p.
642). Could that new voice be "a voice crying in the
wilderness?" Such a voice would have invoked Biblical and
messianic images of promise as recorded in Isaiah 40:3,
Amos 5:18, and John 1:23 referring to Christ and his
forerunner, John the Baptist.
Later in that acceptance speech. Carter expressed a
religious conception of love. Carter reminded his
convention and national audience via television and radio:
"I have spoken many times about love, but love must be
aggressively translated into simple justice" (Carter, July
15, 1976, p. 643) . It could be argued that "love" is
mostly foreign territory for politicians and political
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discourse, but from Carter's rural, religious milieu - the
arena of the pulpit - such talk seemed consistent with his
'Christian' ethos. One is reminded here of Cicero's famous
aphorism in De Reoublica: "for these virtues (justice,
civility, and respect) originate in our natural inclination
to love our fellow man." Cicero further noted the
connection of love to divinity, and such connections have
been made by John Milton and John Witherspoon, but have
been rare in America since Emerson. Carter's reference to
love also evokes images of Martin Luther King, and also
suggests that the traditional political virtues are rooted
in religious morality with God as the repository of all
good.
The long-standing religious tradition of concern for
the poor, orphans, and widows was in sharp contrast to the
secular materialism of the Nixon and Ford administrations
who spoke of welfare as an investment. Carter transferred
religious teaching to the arena of policy when he said:
We should make our major investments in people, not in buildings and weapons. The poor, the weak, the aged, the afflicted must be treated with respect and compassion and with love. (Carter, July 15, 1976, p. 643)
Toward the close of his acceptance speech. Carter
quoted part of a contemporary Bob Dylan song. At the time
of the speech Dylan's reported born-again conversion
experience had been much in the news and his lyrics were
being freshly scrutinized for proto-Christian sentiments
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and ideas. Citing the rock musician turned Christian,
Carter said: "We have an America that, in Bob Dylan's
phrase, is busy being b o m , not busy dying" (Carter, July
15, 1976, p. 644). After the nadir of Watergate, it seemed
significant that the self-proclaimed, often media-reported
"born-again" candidate Carter employed an image of America
as 'busy being born' - resonating with evangelical,
religious concepts of rebirth, renewal, and new birth-
from a born-again rock musician.
The last signal to the devout and a clear violation of
civil-religious discourse was the reference that Carter had
insisted be a part of his acceptance address. As the July
26, 1976 Newsweek cover story "Coming on Strong" about
Carter and Mondale reported:
. . . Carter added in a new last paragraph urging his party to go forth 'as brothers and sisters' in unity and pride; the phrase, he told the group, was 'the most religious' in the whole evangelical text. (Newsweek, July 26, 1976, p. 23)
Carter's strategic employment of the phrase "as brothers
and sisters" and his own reference to it as 'the most
religious' phrase clearly supports the argument that Carter
constructed messages for a religious, evangelical audience
within his political discourse. It is also notable that
Carter used the metaphoric frame of 'The March. ' "To go
forth . . . in unity and pride" was a favorite phrase of
black civil rights preachers who convened their followers
to pray together before going forth to take disciplined
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political action. This evocation of 'The March' suggests
that Carter, like the civil rights leaders of the 1960s,
was ready to merge religious and political forms to attain
civic goals.
On January 20, 1977 Carter delivered his presidential
inaugural address. Hahn has reported some of the response
to Carter's inaugural:
James Reston referred to the Inaugural as a 'revival meeting.' Hedrick Smith said it was 'less rallying c ^ than sermon, ' and Anthony Hillbrunner entitled his analyis of it, 'Bom Again: Carter's Inaugural Sermon.' Certainly these commentators noted the most obvious subject in the speech. (Hahn, 1984, p. 268)
Carter began with a message of gratitude to Gerald Ford and
then he framed the nature of the occasion in terms of
universalistic moral principles and of spiritual renewal:
For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land. In this outward and physical ceremony, we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher. Miss Julie Coleman, used to say, 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.' (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
There are three isolations of civil-religious discourse
within the first two paragraphs of this speech. First,
according to Hahn, "when Carter thanked President Ford for
'all he has done to heal our land,' he implied that one of
the Presidential responsibilities is healing" (Hahn, 1984,
p. 268). Healing can be understood in medical terms and
spiritual terms. As Hahn has explained "metaphorically,
[healing] is a divine responsibility" (Hahn, p. 268) .
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Spiritual healing is clearly a priestly function. It is a
far cry from Nixon's "lowering of our voices" or from the
managerial terms in which Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower and even
Johnson, Kennedy, and Truman defined the job. Second, when
Carter spoke of this "outward and physical ceremony" of the
inauguration in contrast to the "inner and spiritual
strength of our Nation," he was indicating his dualistic,
dichotomous religious world-view. Hahn has offered the
following explanation for Carter's description of the
moment: "In defining the world as two distinct parts,
physical and spiritual, and then emphasizing the latter.
President Carter set a religious mood for his inaugural
address" (Hahn, p. 268). Third, not only did Carter
emphasize the "spiritual strength" of the Nation, he also
spoke of "unchanging principles." Even though he did not
immediately identify those principles, he revealed their
source in his next statements:
Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President, in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me just a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah: 'He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.' (Micah 6:8) (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
Carter's references to God's transcendent authority clearly
placed the state beneath that authority. Whereas Sartre
once said "Man's project is to become God," Carter affirmed
the limits of earthly aspirations in "walking humbly."
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Evangelicals and Southern Baptists see themselves as
"people of the Book." The Bible is their sole sacred text
and the central reference point in their worship, liturgy,
meditation, and religious instruction. Carter emphasized
the importance of the Bible in his own life by taking the
oath of office upon his own personal copy of the Bible and
then making mention of that action in the speech that
followed. As Hahn has noted, "Carter specifically referred
to his faith by talking of the Two Bibles before him and by
quoting the prophet Micah" (Hahn, 1984, p. 268). Carter
affirmed his religious tradition and signaled his
denominational background by this action and most
significantly appeared to indicate a hierarchy of
allegiances, an order in which the Bible was above the
Constitution. Legitimacy was located in the will of God
and not in satisfying the general will of the people.
Carter employed the word "spirit" seven times and used
other clearly religious words such as "pray," "faith,"
"sacrifice," "religion," and "moral" an additional twenty-
seven times in this short ceremonial, inaugural address.
Carter used the specific phrase "a new spirit" four times
in this speech. The phrase "a new spirit" could have held
a number of meanings, but from Carter, a recently-elected
'born-again' Christian President, that "new spirit" phrase
would not only have meant the new energy, ideals, and
perspective of a new administration, but also "spirit" as
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in spirituality. Spirit in this context exists as the
contrasting term for "the flesh," or the material. For
evangelical Christians, particularly those from the New
Religious Right movement, a 'charismatic' meaning would
have been quite probable. To them. Carter's reference to a
"new spirit" would have indicated genuine conversion to
Christianity authenticated by a charismatic or "new spirit"
experience. Such talk of "new spirit" would have been
commonplace for the pulpit and the revival meeting, but
quite unusual for a presidential inaugural address. A
probable Biblical context that would supply meaning for a
"new spirit" would have been the Gospel of John, New
Testament (John 3:1-8) and the conversation reported by
John the Apostle between Christ and Nicodemus about faith
and being born of the water and the spirit or being "born
again." Probably not since William Jennings Bryan had a
speaker mobilized this constituency, and indeed the Bryan
of Chautauqua and the lecture circuit was closer to
Carter's idiom than the populist Bryan of 1896.
As Carter sketched the history of our nation he said
that: "Ours was the first society openly to define itself
in terms of both spirituality and human liberty" (Carter,
January 20, 1977, p. 258). His meaning behind the term
"spirituality" is open to interpretation, but certainly an
emphasis upon "religious" society, especially from his
evangelical Christian perspective, would be a wholly
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plausible understanding. Some colonial historians have
described Americans as a people seeking freedom from
established religion, and in some cases seeking freedom to
establish their own religions. Although Protestant
Christianity predominated, a consensus upon "spirituality"
could not have been claimed then or since. Despite
temporary Calvinist Establishment in New England, and
Anglicanism in Virginia, no creed dominated, and the nation
tolerated a diversity of religious and belief systems.
Moreover, Carter's notion of "human liberty" has been
decidedly slow in coming, more an ideal than a reality,
especially for minorities throughout our history and at
present.
Often a part of the inaugural address is the
president's interpretation of his or her role. Carter as
candidate provided an foreshadowing of Carter as president.
It is likely that his grassroots, entering of every
primary, dawn to dusk campaign characterized by his town
meetings, reflected the desire and responsibility that he
may have felt to connect with people beyond the Capitol.
As a Southern Baptist he was part of a non-hierarchical
congregationalist system wherein the pastor serves as the
undershepherd to his flock and the congregation is the
locus of power and decision-making. It could be argued
that his Southern Baptist background, his campaign style,
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and the following description from his inaugural give us
indication of his interpretation of the presidency:
You have given me a great responsibility - to stay close to you, to be worthy of you, and to exemplify what you are. Let us create together a new national spirit of unity and trust. Your strength can compensate for my weakness, and your wisdom can help to minimize my mistakes. (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
It could be argued that a significant influence upon
Carter's perception of his role as president and his
'relationship' to the American people was his application
of the Biblical "suffering servant" image of Isaiah 53.
Such an interpretation of mutuality - "your strength can
compensate for my weakness" and "your wisdom can help to
minimize my mistakes" (Carter, p. 258) - "co-strugglers" in
the same situation would have been typical of Carter's
evangelical Southern Baptist background. Carter's notion
of the presidency was certainly not an imperial one.
Carter himself said: "There is no way to understand me and
my political philosophy without understanding my faith"
(Shaw, 1983, p. 16). James D. Speer has attributed primary
influence upon Carter's perception and style of his
presidency to his Baptist background. In his paper "Jimmy
Carter was a Baptist President" (1990) Speer had concluded
the following:
(1) Certain features of Jimmy Carter's religious background provide an explanatory framework for understanding important aspects of his governing style. (2) There is a parallel between Baptist polity and Carter's perception of the structure and process of
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government. (3) There is also evidence that Baptist attitudes toward power and authority influenced Carter's embrace of presidential power. (Speer, 1990, p. 1)
A dominant feature of such a Baptist paradigm would have
been the centrality of the congregation or "the people."
With reference to authority, power, and decision-making.
Baptists use a congregational style of governing, rather
than a hierarchical structure. A local Baptist church
would be analogous to a "town meeting" of the people of
God, Carter's preferred method of communication with people
as both candidate and president. According to Speer
"Baptists have traditionally emphasized voluntarism and
consensus, a fact which has implications for their view of
power and their understanding of the structure and the
process of government" (Speer, 1990, pp. 4-5). E. Y.
Mullins, the prominent early twentieth-century Southern
Baptist theologian, has described the rule of Baptist
polity as "the consensus of the competent" (Mullins, 1908,
pp. 55-56.) Such a belief might explain Carter's notion of
"a government as good as its people." Speer has explained
"the ideal pattern of decision-making among Baptists would
be action between parties on the basis of primary moral
agreement" because of their emphasis upon voluntarism and
the idea of consensus (Speer, 1990, p. 6). Moreover, Speer
has noted the following:
Because of the resistence to the embrace of power, it follows that Baptists would resist bargaining and those aspects of presidential power that involve
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bargaining power. Since Jimmy Carter is a good Baptist, he would be expected to resist bargaining behavior and those aspects of presidential behavior that involve bargaining. (Speer, 1990. p. 19)
In Keeping Faith (1982) Carter described his relationship
with Congress and that situation which requires bargaining
and the exercise of presidential power as "my one-week
honeymoon with Congress" (Carter, 1982, p. 65). Carter's
discussion (1982) of this relationship includes the
following observations:
(1) I had several serious disagreements with Congress, but the issue of water projects was the one that caused the deepest breach between me and the Democratic leadership, (p. 78) (2) I made some mistakes in dealing with Congress, and one that I still regret is weakening and compromising that first year on some of these worthless dam projects, (p. 79) (3) Later, on the issue [water projects], I was not so timid. In October, 1978, I vetoed the annual public- works bill because it included some of the same water projects, (p. 79) (4) In this insidious game, (tax legislation for special interests) the number of votes available to the sponsors of a tax bill were almost exactly proportional to the number of loopholes added to the legislation, (p. 84) (5) In balance, my feelings toward Congress are mixed. On most issues, the lawmakers treated me well, sometimes under politically difficult circumstances. However, when the interests of powerful lobbyists were at stake, a majority of the members often yielded to a combination of political threats and the blandishments of heavy campaign contributions, (p. 88)
Carter's opposition to bargaining in his role as president
can be seen during a news conference when he responded to a
reporter's question of his willingness to exchange the
water projects for the tax rebate package:
I am not much of a trader. That is one of my political defects for which I have been criticized a
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great deal . . . I am not inclined at all to trade a water project that's not needed or my approval of it in return for a vote on a tax refund which I think is needed for every member of Congress and the people that look to that Congress member for leadership. (Speer, 1990, p. 20)
Speer has noted that it "might be that Carter's difficulty
in working with Congress, and his apparent negative
perception of the role of the professional Washington
community, was simply - as Theodore H. White put it - that
he didn't like politicians" (Speer, 1990, p. 24).
Furthermore, "like a good Baptist preacher. Carter desired
direct access to the people and basically disliked or
distrusted the political 'hierarchy'" (Speer, 1990, p. 25).
Therefore, similar to a Baptist pastor who was to be an
"undershepherd" to his congregation, a "co-laborer," and a
"servant" who worked alongside and "suffered" with his
people, it could be argued that Carter's perspective on his
role as president was directly and profoundly influenced by
his Baptist faith, doctrine, and milieu.
In the next paragraph of his speech, the standard
generic characterization of American civil religion became
quite specific in terms of the behavior that Carter
requested of his fellow citizens. He said: "Let us learn
together and laugh together and work together and pray
together, confident that in the end we will triumph
together in the right" (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258).
Personal and congregational prayers are standard
ecclesiastical practices for Baptists; "praying together"
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would have been a common experience from Carter's Baptist
background and church involvement.
Considering that this speech was an inaugural address
to a society bombarded by mediated messages of material
gain, the pursuit of comfort and wealth, and that this was
a ceremonial event. Carter's call for "less" not more and
"sacrifice for the common good" were clear violations of
American civil religion. Of prosperity and America's role
in the world Carter said:
We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do every thing, nor can we afford to lack boldness as we meet the future. So together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best. (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
Carter's inaugural is one of caution and limits, quite
different from the expansive view of America in John F.
Kennedy's inaugural address of 1961.
The strategy and nature of the "fireside chat" were
consistent with the conceptualization of the presidency
that Carter had offered in both his acceptance speech and
his inaugural address. His stated purpose "to remain close
to you" and his apparent dislike of the political
hierarchy, coupled with his Baptist background and his
desire for "community," found full expression in his first
"fireside chat" energy speech. At the beginning of his
first energy speech Carter told the nation on February 2,
1977:
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I've spent a lot of time deciding how I can be a good President. This talk, which the broadcast networks have agreed to bring to you, is one of several steps I will take to keep in close touch with the people of our country, and to let you know informally about our plans for the coming months. (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 259)
Again Carter's emphasis upon the centrality of "the
people," direct access to the people, and "congregational"
participation in decisions that affect them were all
consistent with Baptist heritage, doctrine, and practice.
Carter repeated the "call to sacrifice" which would
become one of the cornerstones of his energy policy and
energy discourse. He argued that: "Some of these efforts
will also require dedication - perhaps even some sacrifice
- from you" (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 259) . The call
to sacrifice bacame a consistent refrain in Carter's
discourse, particularly in response to the energy crisis.
Individual sacrifice for the common good was not a virtue
unique to Christianity, but the call to sacrifice is a
significant distinguishing mark of the faithful in the
Christian interpretation of the Biblical record and
throughout ecclesiastical history. The central image of
the cross and the absolute sacrifice of Christ for the
redemption of the world is translated into the role of
"sacrifice" for the believer as the follower of Christ.
Since Christ is the ultimate role model, the imitation of
Christ, "the way of the Cross," and sacrifice are standard
evangelical beliefs. Genuine believers are those who are
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willing to sacrifice themselves for God, the faith, and the
community. From Carter's spiritual world-view, especially
his evangelical Baptist Christian background, to ask
Americans to sacrifice was a natural, reasonable, even
noble request. A call to sacrifice would not have been so
readily accepted by secular humanists. From a secular
perspective, it is likely that sacrifice means exploitation
and compromise, giving in and losing. Furthermore, since
we elect public officials to run the government and take
care of us, asking us to sacrifice seems quite out of
order.
On April 18, 1977 Carter delivered his "Moral
Equivalent of War" energy speech to the nation. The focus
of the speech was the energy crisis and energy policy. The
extraordinary feature of this speech was not its focus, but
rather Carter's characterization of the domestic problem of
energy as a "moral equivalent of war." It seemed an odd
choice to a nation that had suffered division,
recrimination, and defeat in their most recent war,
Vietnam.
Carter had repeatedly warned the American public of
the energy crisis, but they refused to accept the fact that
such a crisis existed. The completion of the eight-hundred
mile Alaskan pipeline in 1977 resulted in a surplus of oil
on the Pacific coast. The former Secretary of Defense
Melvin R. Laird claimed that the "crisis" was created by
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the government and that the shortages were not real.
Furthermore, Laird said that there was enough natural gas,
oil, and coal to last "for several centuries." Moreover,
Nobel prize recipient Milton Friedman had said that there
was "no shortage of fuel and energy" (Armbruster, 1982, p.
383) .
Carter's mere characterization of this effort as a
"moral equivalent of war" translated the energy crisis from
the pragmatic realm into another dimension - a moral or
religious dimension. Carter said of the coining of this
phrase and its application:
When I declared the energy effort to be the moral equivalent of war - a phrase coined by William James and suggested to me by Admiral Hyman Rickover - it was impossible for me to imagine the bloody legis lative battles we would have to win before the major campaign was over. Throughout my entire term. Congress and I struggled with energy legislation. Despite my frustration, there was never a moment when I did not consider the creation of a national energy policy equal in importance to any other goal we had. (Carter, 1982, p. 91)
Moral and religious concerns are often bound together in
our culture because of Judeo-Christian influences. Thus,
for Carter to attach a "moral" dimension to the energy
situation could well have created confusion because such
energy issues were not typically understood from a moral or
religious perspective. It could be argued that Carter
attached morality to the practical concern of energy
because of hie spiritual world-view and his Baptist
background with the Bible as the authoritative source of
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moral and spiritual instruction. For example, the Biblical
story of creation in Genesis, chapters 1-3, indicates that
human beings are to have 'dominion' over the earth, to be
its caretakers and stewards. That principle of responsible
stewardship of the earth would have been part of Carter's
Baptist heritage and teaching. Wastefulness of resources
and abuse of the environment would have been clear
violations of that 'Biblical' understanding of being a good
steward of the earth.
This principle of 'Biblical' stewardship was clearly
presented in this speech. Carter claimed that: "We must
not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world
for our children and grandchildren" (Carter, April 18,
1977, p. 418). Furthermore he suggested that: "It (the
energy crisis) is worse because more waste has occurred,
and because more time has passed by without our planning
for the future" (Carter, April 18, 1977, p. 418). He
illustrated this idea of individual stewardship in the
following statement:
Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan, and Sweden. (Carter, April 18, 1977, p. 419)
Since the Enlightenment, the concept of progress has made
Westerners uncomfortable with the idea of limits. This
religious frame with its emphasis on a finitude, an end.
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was peculiarly suited for this message, but its
articulation was foreign to the progress tradition.
In addition to Carter's appeals of the stewardship of
energy and its resources, he also called for sacrifice ten
times in this one speech. Examples of Carter's calls for
sacrifice include:
(1) Some [energy proposals] will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices, (p. 418) (2) The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the Government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices, (p. 419) (3) Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. (p. 419) (4) I can't tell you that these measures will be easy, nor will they be popular. But I think most of you realize that a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy. (p. 420) (5) I am sure each of you will find something you don't like about the specifics of our proposal. It will demand that we make sacrifices and changes in our lives. To some degree, the sacrifices will be painful - but so is any meaningful sacrifice, (p. 420)
Sacrifice would not have been a welcome message in that
time of economic recession, increasing inflation and rising
unemployment. To ask our nation's citizens, industries,
and government employees to sacrifice would have been quite
a political risk. Sacrifice would have held a different
meaning for those who saw the world in spiritual terms like
Carter. The separation they saw between "this earth" and
the spiritual realm or "heaven" would have made sacrifice
on this earth not only acceptable, but a noble, religious
endeavor such as Carter had described - "any meaningful
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sacrifice" (Carter, April 18, 1977, p. 420). Supporting
Carter's viewpoint that sacrifice would be "meaningful" was
the religious belief that sacrifice and suffering are
redemptive. The ideas of suffering being redemptive could
have been echoes from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 "I
Have a Dream" speech.
It could be argued that Carter's labeling of the
energy crisis and his Administration's approach to it as
"the moral equivalent of war" created the sense that this
situation was a moral decline, rather than just a decline
of competence in terms of energy production, consumption,
and management. Furthermore, his denunciation of
wastefulness, his emphasis upon stewardship, and his
repeated calls to sacrifice, all "reasonable" from his own
spiritual world-view and Baptist background, were probably
unusual, unpopular, and peculiar ideas to a largely
secular, materialistic society.
After the historic negotiations held at Camp David in
September 1978, Carter gave a speech about those peace
talks to a joint session of the Congress on September 18,
1978. In this speech. Carter offered a tribute to
President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of
Israel, and then he spoke of the importance of peace in the
Middle East. He also described the Camp David agreements
and the framework for a peace treaty between Egypt and
Israel.
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Throughout this first Ceanp David speech. Carter
violated the normal range of American civil religion in
terms of the attention he gave to the matter and practice
of prayer. To evangelicals in general and Baptists in
particular, prayer is an essential feature of Christian
doctrine and practice. Examples of Carter's references to
prayer include (Carter, September 18, 1978):
(1) The world prayed for the success of our efforts, and I am glad to announce to you that these prayers have been answered, (p. 2) (2) It is my strong hope, my prayer, that the question of Israeli settlements on Egyptian territory will not be the final obstacle to peace, (p. 4) (3) And for that [prospects for peace], I hope that you will share my prayer of thanks and my hope that the promise of this moment shall be fully realized. (p. 4) (4) The prayers at Camp David were the same as those of the shepherd King David, who prayed in the 85th Psalm, 'Wilt thou not revive us again: That thy people may rejoice in thee? I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and unto his saints: but let them not return again unto folly.' (p. 4)
Carter's frequent employment of the term "compassion"
when he spoke about the nature and function of government
in society revealed one of his operative beliefs about
government that it should and can be "good", i.e.,
compassionate and moral because its people are good.
Carter's frequent campaign slogan promising "a government
as good as its people" seems to indicate that he believed
that government could reflect the goodness, virtue, and
compassion that he saw in people. Such a belief about
people could have arisen from the Baptist notion that E. Y.
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Mullins identified as "the consensus of the competent."
That the nation is prior to the state is a spiritual idea
of great antiquity. For example, the Biblical "chosen
people" are in diaspora, but they are still a nation.
On January 23, 1979 Carter delivered his State of the
Union address to the Nation from the House of
Representatives during a joint session of Congress. In
this speech Carter pointed out that:
In our government it is a myth that we must choose between compassion and competence. Together, we build the foundation for a government that works - and that works for people. (Carter, January 23, 1979, p. 226).
This reference to compassionate government in the 1979
State of the Union address was not a unique employment. He
characterized his expectation that government be
compassionate in three previous speeches:
(1) This country set a standard within the community of nations of courage, of compassion, integrity, and dedication to basic human rights and freedoms. [National Press Club Speech] (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 214) (2) We (Democratic Party) have made mistakes and we have paid for them. But ours is a tradition of leadership and compassion and progress. [Acceptance Speech, Democratic National Convention] (Carter, July 15, 1976, p. 643) (3) Our government must at the same time be both competent and compassionate. [Inaugural address] (Carter, January 20, 1977,p. 258) (4) I have often used the phrase 'competent and compassionate' to describe what our government should be. [Fireside Chat] (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 259)
Compassion is a term that implies "mercy, empathy, and
pity." While compassion is not exclusively a religious or
spiritual term, it could be argued that it would have had
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such value when used by a 'religious' rhetor such as
Carter. Religious or spiritual connotations could have
been supplied by hearers who shared Carter's spiritual
world-view and his particular religious background.
Carter's belief that government should be "good" and
"compassionate" as well as "competent," and that it could
be so because of the "goodness" of its people was certainly
an optimistic perspective. Some would probably describe
such a belief or notion as naive as well. Historian Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr. has offered a response to Carter's belief
in the 'good' nature of the American people and their
government:
Since Mr. Carter has assured us that he would never tell a lie, one must conclude he really believes the American people to be good, honest, compassionate, etc. and filled with love. To such specious generali zations, the historian can only respond that, on the record, some Americans are, and some aren't. One curious feature of the Carter mind is the apparent absence of a historical dimension. (Schlesinger, 1977, p. 1)
Schlesinger's commentary on Carter seems to demonstrate a
lack of understanding by a secular historian who
establishes "goodness" or "badness" upon 'the record,' a
statistical catalog of specific instances instead of the
religious notion of an elect. It is just as likely that
Carter's ahistorical approach is a religious one. Within
such an approach there is a quality of universal goodness
in people. Such goodness is "tested" by circumstances but
not made by them.
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On March 26, 1979 Carter, Begin, and Sadat met for the
signing of the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty, the
achievement of the Camp David summit in September of 1978.
All three leaders represented nations that are largely
characterized by three differnt religious and cultural
traditions - Carter, the United States and Christianity;
Begin, Israel and Judaism; and Sadat, Egypt and Islam. Of
these three nations, certainly the United States is the
most pluralistic nation with a wide and growing diversity
of ethnic, cultural, and religious traditions. Will
Herberg's characterization of the United States from the
Judeo-Christian tradition in his 1955 book Protestant,
Catholic, and Jew would have been significantly outdated
for the United States in 1979, much less the present time.
Nonetheless, the United States has still been considered to
be a "Christian" nation with a variety of understandings of
that identification. From such a spiritual world-view as
Carter's, with his evangelical Baptist Christian
background, it could be argued that on some level he, too,
might have shared that perspective of the United States as
a "Christian" nation. More importantly, America is still
viewed by most of the world as an extension of Western
European civilization, and its leadership is traditionally
connected to Western or "Christian" values.
In what was both a ceremonial occasion and an
ecumenical moment. Carter jeopardized that ecumenical
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opportunity by quoting the prophet Isaiah, by offering the
patently folk religious phrase "brothers and sisters," and
his own understanding of prayer at the conclusion of the
speech. Since both texts offer invitations to peace and
not war, it would seem that the selection from The Koran
quoted first by Carter would have been sufficient
exposition. His use of the Biblical passage might have
been seen as an attempt to 'balance' the use of The Koran
or to supersede its value. While prayer and meditation are
central practices in each of the three major religions
represented at the treaty signing. Carter's
characterization of prayer was clearly from his own
tradition. As he declared, "We pray God, we pray God
together, that these dreams will come true. I believe they
will. Thank you very much" (Carter, March 26, 1979, p.
387) . From an evangelical and Baptist perspective, the
prerequisite for prayer to be answered or accomplished
remains largely with 'the faith' of the one who prays.
Carter spoke from his own religious tradition when he said
"I believe they will," referring to the prayers surrounding
the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations and peace treaty. From
the two other religious traditions, "answers" to prayer are
contingent upon other factors such as the disposition of
God, the nature of the request, or "the will" of Jehovah or
Allah, moreso than the condition of the one who prays or
the quality of their faith. Americans are inheritors of a
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two-thousand year old tradition. While our religious ideas
are largely Judeo-Christian, our political ideas are Greco-
Roman. There has always been tension between the "two
swords" and each has had its own sphere. At Camp David,
Carter seemed more like his theocratic partners in word and
deed than like the agent of a nation with a firm separation
between Church and State.
On July 4, 1979 Carter decided to cancel what would
have been his fifth nationwide energy speech. He did not
offer a clear explanation for this cancellation and his
"retreat" to Camp David became an object of speculation
among the press. Carter described the situation in the
following way:
I was aware that the public would be wondering what was going on at Camp David but was willing to accept some initial concern and criticism if I could dramatize the importance of the questions I was trying to answer - and also find some answers myself. (Carter, 1982, p. 115)
After his Camp David consultations Carter returned to
Washington, D.C. and on July 15, 1979 he gave the revised
energy speech. This speech was designed to recapture his
sense of leadership, to deal with the nation's 'crisis of
confidence' as understood and reported by Carter's pollster
Patrick Caddell, and to outline his revised energy
proposals.
In "The Erosion of Confidence" speech, or as it has
been also entitled, the "Malaise speech," Carter quoted
some of the comments or advice that he had been given at
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Camp David. These comments came from "small groups of key
advisers - governors, local officials, members of Congress,
executives from business and labor, economists and energy
experts, religious leaders, a small group of experienced
political advisers, and some of the most senior and
respected news reporters" (Carter, 1982, p. 116).
Moreover, in his presidential autobiography. Keeping Faith;
Memoirs of a President (1982) , Carter listed some of the
comments that he had received at Camp David, and some of
those were used as illustrations in the speech while some
that were listed were not quoted directly. Several of
these statements noted by Carter stretch American civil
religion to the breaking point because of their
particularly 'doctrinal' religious connotations. The
following statements illustrate Carter's habitual mode of
composition. His political judgments are expressed in
religious images; his political metaphor blurs private
moral conduct and public civic conduct; situational
decisions are universalized with the language of
transcendence.
His retreat recollections include several statements
from persons that indicate clear and potent religious
appeal. Two such examples illustrate this religious
appeal. The first example is: "I want to say, 'I have one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one President, one policy!'"
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(Carter, 1982, p. 119). This statement was clearly
inspired by the Biblical passage found in Ephesians 4: 4-6:
There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6, N.A.S.B., 1977, pp. 268-269)
The mixture of "policy" and the supposedly secular position
of "president" with "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" was
at best curious. Policy is contingent and subject to
revision while the Spirit is sovereign and immutable. The
statement is impossible to translate without the knowledge
and understanding of the Biblical passage from which it is
drawn. This violation of American civil religion is
clearly evident in the weaving of Biblical text and
political commentary, a mixing of religious ideas and
expectations with expectations of government and the
presidency.
The second example is that: "America is a nation with
the soul of a church" (Carter, 1982, p. 119). This
"church" metaphor was apparently one that had a powerful
resonance for Carter. The local Baptist church had been a
central element in his hometown of Plains, Georgia as a
boy, and undoubtedly a powerfully influential force
throughout his adult life as well. Not only is the
"church" metaphor of the nation extremely idealistic, it is
also overly simplistic. It emphasized the voluntaristic
rather than the coercive, legal nation; as an extended
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metaphor it exalts the belief of the people over technical
and rational solutions, and it places Carter squarely in
the pulpit as the preacher-teacher.
Standard American civil religion invokes the blessing
of God which is often interpreted as material blessing.
Within this "Malaise Speech" Carter attacked materialism
and argued for spiritual values.
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self- indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does or by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We have learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. (Carter, July 15, 1979, p. 643)
Carter's characterization of the nation as worshipping
"self-indulgence and consumption" and the "piling up [of]
material goods" that "cannot fill the emptiness of lives
which have no confidence or purpose" could have been pulled
out of many a Christian sermon. The St. Louis Post-
Dispatch said that Carter's speech "mixed morality with
energy, being in some respects a sermon and in others a
call to action" (The New York Times. July 17, 1979, p.
A13) . Carter's denunciation has a distinguished pedigree.
It is the voice of the prophets of Ancient Israel calling
for repentance, of Christ cleansing the temple of the
moneychangers, of Oliver Cromwell, of Savonarola, of
Jonathan Edwards, and of George Whitefield.
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Carter's spiritual world-view was evident when he
argued that: "It's clear that the true problems of our
nation are much deeper - deeper than gasoline lines or
energy shortages. Deeper, even, than inflation or
recession" (Carter, July 15, 1979, p. 642). He summarized
the 'true' problems with the statement, "We are confronted
with a moral and a spiritual crisis" (Carter, July 15,
1979, p. 643). While the energy issue must have been
understood by most persons as a domestic, pragmatic,
economic, production, and management problem. Carter
attempted to make the energy issue a moral and spiritual
concern. As Hahn has concluded: "The influence of that
evangelical experience [for Carter] pervades-
symbolically, structurally, and ideologically - the very
foundations of the Energy speech" (Hahn, 1980, pp. 583-
584) .
STRUCTURAL VIOLATIONS
Structural violations of civil-religious discourse
would include the use of established religious formats in
political contexts. Principal among these are the jeremiad
(or other sermonic elements such as first-person
testimony), Biblical passages used as prooftexts, and calls
to repentance and dedication. The term "jeremiad" was
coined by historian Perry Miller to refer to the type of
sermon characteristic of the Puritan preachers in late
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seventeenth-century New England. Typically, it must
include a threat of punishment if a "return" to God is not
accomplished. According to Garry Wills, "the preachers
denounced like an ancient prophet the people's defection
from its contract with God, a defection that can free God
from honoring his promises in the contract" (Wills, 1990,
p. 69) . If man kept the covenant, on the other hand, God
was bound by virtue of a compact made between persons of
the Holy Trinity. The jeremiad has come to describe
discourse, religious or secular, which identifies Americans
as a "chosen people" and calls them to return to
traditional or "Christian" values and 'preaches' that
salvation can be achieved by that return to God,
rededication to those values, and hard work.
James D. Barber, in his article "Adult Identity and
Presidential Style: The Rhetorical Emphasis," (1968), has
explained how these religious formats and structures become
a part of a President's discourse. Barber's remarks
illustrate well the concept of the 'limitations' of
personal political experience:
The President is a person who tries to cope with an environment by using techniques he has found effective. For all the complexities of personality, there are always regularities, habitual ways of handling similar situations, just as the demands and opportunities of the Presidency are complex, but patterned. Thus, the President-as-person interacts with the set of recurrent problems and opportunities presented by the Presidency; the pattern of this interaction is his political style. He copes, adapts, leads, and responds not as some shapeless
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organism in a flood of novelties, but as a man with a memory in a system with a history. (Barber, 1968, pp. 938-939)
Certainly Jimmy Carter as a person, a political candidate,
and as President, was a product of an environment that was
not a particularly cosmopolitan one: his birth in the red-
dirt clay of rural southwestern Georgia, and his childhood
and early manhood in Plains with the Plains Baptist Church
serving as a primary instrument in his religious, cultural,
and ideological training. It seems that Carter's born-
again Christianity is the characteristic that is most
typical of his President-as-person insignia (Hahn, 1980, p.
583). Hahn made the connection explicit: "Carter's
understanding of government and society emerged out of his
experience as a born-again Christian" (Hahn, 1980, p. 584).
The conflation of evangelical and secular political
categories seems evident within Carter's discourse in the
form of structural violations of the patently generic
nature of American civil religion.
In Carter's December 12, 1974 speech to the National
Press Club in Washington, D.C. he violated the typical
American civil religious form. First, he offered an
uncited Biblical passage as a prooftext for his explanation
of the lack of effective management of the federal
government. Rejecting the secular model of government
guaranteeing security and material well-being. Carter
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affirmed a teleological model of a political community with
a transcendent purpose:
Our Nation now has no understandable national purpose, no clearly defined goals, and no organizational mechanism to develop or achieve such purposes or goals. We move from one crisis to the next as if they were fads, even though the previous one hasn't been solved. The Bible says: 'If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle.'" (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 215)
The juxtaposition of the Biblical passage indicates that it
is meant to serve as a prooftext for his assessment of the
Nation and its present government.
The second example from this National Press Club
speech of a structural violation is Carter's use of "first-
person testimony." A standard feature of evangelical
Christian worship services and sermons is the "testimony"
wherein the believer 'testifies' or offers a first-person
account of their belief. A first-person testimony includes
a "witness" to the experiential nature of faith - the
telling of what a person has seen, heard, or experienced.
From an evangelical perspective it is one's religious
"experience" that validates or authenticates one's belief.
Carter's use of this form would have seemed utterly
conventional in a secular text. It's status as "testimony"
is achieved by its proximity to the Biblical prooftext:
As a planner and a businessman, and a chief executive, I know from experience that uncertainty is also a devastating affliction in private life and in government. (Carter, December 12, 1974, p. 215)
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Subtle, yet powerful, was Carter's "witness" to his
experience. His first-person testimony is expressed
clearly in the phrase "I know from experience." Such a
witness of "experience" reinforces belief; somewhat
ironically, it puts faith in tangible form.
In his presidential inaugural address on January 20,
1977, Carter offered one of his favorite Biblical passages
as a prooftext in support of the quotation from his high
school teacher. Miss Julia Coleman. According to Carter:
As my high school teacher. Miss Julia Coleman, used to say, 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.' (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
He followed the "unchanging principles" statement with this
preface and the subsequent Biblical prooftext:
Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President, in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me just a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah: 'He hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.' (Micah 6:8) (Carter, January 20, 1977, p. 258)
Carter does not allow the listener or reader to imagine his
or her own principles, but he supplies the context of
Protestant Christianity for them by placing the Biblical
text of Micah 6:8 after the quotation on principles from
his high school teacher.
In his Keeping Faith (1982), Carter described the
process of thinking about and writing this inaugural
speech. His style model was Woodrow Wilson, a president
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noted for his deep religious faith and his strong penchant
for using religious imagery:
Over a period of several weeks I had done a great deal of work on these few words, and in the process had read the inaugural addresses of the Presidents who served before me. I was touched most of all by Woodrow Wilson's. Like him, I felt I was taking office at a time when Americans desired a return to first principles by their government. His call for national repentance also seemed appropriate, although I feared that a modern audience might not understand a similar call from me. (Carter, 1982, p. 19)
As he discusses the writing of his inaugural Carter
illustrates perfectly Barber's explanation of rhetorical
choices and forms as manifestations of a president's
historical pattern of coping with the world:
With Rosalynn I had discussed which of two Bible verses to cite. I had known them both since child hood, and they were an integral part of our religious beliefs. At first, I intended to use II Chronicles 7:14 ('If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land'), but after some second thoughts about how those who did not share my beliefs might mis understand and react to the words "wicked" and "sin," I chose Micah 6:8. (Carter, 1982, p. 19)
Carter spoke of the familiarity of these Scriptures, "I had
known them both since childhood," and he described them as
"an integral part of our religious beliefs" (Carter, 1982,
p. 19). It is likely that their familiarity and importance
would have made these Scriptures and other Biblical texts
quite accessible to Carter as choices of proof or
illustration for his discourse. In addition, it is
significant that Carter's choice in this specific instance
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was not between secular and Biblical proof, but concerned
which of the two Biblical texts to use. It seems apparent
that Carter was aware of a "religious code" when he said
that some "might misunderstand and react to the words
'wicked' and 'sin'" (Carter, 1982, p. 19).
Carter's selection of the phrase "moral equivalent of
war" with his administration's approach to the energy
crisis is a curious one. In his autobiography Carter
attributed the suggestion of the phrase to his former
superior naval officer Admiral Hyman Rickover. The phrase
had been coined by William James (Carter, 1982, p. 91) .
Neither William James nor Admiral Hyman Rickover are
associated with the kind of religiosity Carter exemplified.
Carter's energy speeches contained a form of prophetic
warning, or jeremiad, a patently religious form most fully
realized in the Puritan Colonial sermon, complete with a
standard "Christian" call to sacrifice for the common good.
On February 2, 1977 Carter delivered his "fireside
chat" energy speech, just two weeks after his inauguration.
Until he 'framed' the problem in jeremiadic form. Carter's
appeal proceeded in the conventional political idiom:
One of the most urgent projects is to develop a national energy policy. As I pointed out during the campaign, the United States is the only major indus trial country without a comprehensive long-range energy policy. . . But the real problem - our failure to plan for the future or to take energy conservation seriously - started long before this winter and will take much longer to solve. I realize that many of you have not believed that we really have an energy problem. But this winter has made us
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all realize that we have to act. (Carter, February 2, 1377, pp. 259-260)
Carter prefaced this warning about energy with a call to
personal sacrifice: "Some of these efforts will also
required dedication - perhaps even some sacrifice - from
you. I don't believe that any of us are afraid to learn
that our national goals require cooperation and mutual
effort" (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 259). Carter placed
the blame of the energy crisis upon our nation's lack of
planning and energy conservation, and the lack of belief on
the part of many people in the reality and seriousness of
the energy crisis in the first place. Furthermore, Carter
believed that: "We must face the fact that the energy
shortage is permanent. There is no way we can solve it
quickly" (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 260). The solution
according to Carter included his "call to sacrifice for the
common good" and his appeal to "help ['love'] our
neighbor," both commonplaces in Christian sermons:
But if we all cooperate and make modest sacrifices, if we learn to live thriftily and remember the importance of helping our neighbors, then we can find ways to adjust, and to make our society more efficient and our lives more enjoyable and productive. (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 260)
Had Carter stopped here with a few policy recommendations,
the speech would have been unremarkable. Instead he began
to 'account' for the situation in jeremiadic terms. A
standard feature of the jeremiad is the breach of the
contract between God and his people, with the outcome of
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people 'losing faith' in one another. Carter used this
feature of a jeremiad toward the conclusion of his fireside
chat on energy;
We have lost faith in joint efforts and mutual sacrifices. Because of the divisions in our country many of us cannot remember a time when we really felt united. (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 262)
The retelling of history and the remembrance of times when
a people were "faithful" is a standard feature of the
jeremiad. The retelling is designed to persuade the
hearers to a return to right living with God and fellow
human beings. Carter used this formula in the following:
But I remember another difficult time in our nation's history when we felt a different spirit. During World War II, we faced a terrible crisis - but the challenge of fighting against fascism drew us together. Those of us old enough to remember know that they were dark and frightening times, but many of our memories are of people ready to help each other for the common good. (Carter, February 2, 1977, p. 262)
Carter's concerted energy policy push came during the
third week of April, 1977. During that particular week he
delivered two major addresses on energy both characterizing
this effort as "the moral equivalent of war." The first
speech was presented to the nation from the White House on
April 18, and the second speech, April 20, to a joint
session of the United States Congress.
Carter's message form in the April IB speech was more
explicitly a warning in the jeremiad tradition. His
prophetic warning and proclamation was clear from the very
beginning of the speech:
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Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us. (Carter, April 18, 1977, p. 418)
The call to sacrifice was more strident in this speech than
in the earlier "fireside chat" speech on energy of February
2, 1977. Carter envisioned his call as a time of testing
for the American people: "Many of these proposals will be
unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with
inconveniences and to make sacrifices" (Carter, April 18,
1977, p. 418). Following his call to sacrifice. Carter
reiterated his sermon-like warning: "The most important
thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be
a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our
strength and our power as a nation. Our decision about
energy will test the character of the American people and
the ability of the President and Congress to govern"
(Carter, April 18, 1977, p. 418). Carter increased the
scope of his prophetic warning with this later statement:
"If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social,
and political crisis that will threaten our free
institutions" (Carter, April 18, 1977, p. 419).
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Carter's most controversial speech, often called the
"Malaise" speech, has been described by Hahn as "two
speeches in one - a sermon on the American loss of
confidence and a presentation of his 'new' energy policy"
(Hahn, 1980, p. 583). The entire speech bristles with
civil religious violations, because of its unashamed and
undisguised sermonic form. According to Hahn, "The
influence of that evangelical experience pervades
symbolically, structurally, and ideologically - the very
foundation of the Energy Sermon" (Hahn, 1980, pp. 583-584).
Hahn further noted that the form of the speech parallels
"the typical sequence of the born-again experience:
identification of problem, retreat to meditation, decision
to commit, announcement of rebirth" (Hahn, 1980, p. 584) .
Carter had followed this "retreat, decision, pronouncement"
formula before. As presidential candidate when his
campaign was losing momentum in the fall of 1976, he had
employed the same journey of the soul:
Carter convened his staff, along with outside advisors, for several days of self-analysis at an isolated retreat; afterward, it was publicly announced that Mr. Carter, having somehow strayed from his path that had led to his nomination, would retrace his steps. (Gold, 1979, p. E19)
And, as President when his Administration was experiencing
difficulty in the Spring of 1978, Carter returned to the
same spiritual success formula:
[Carter] convened his staff, along with outside advisors, for several days of self-analysis at an isolated retreat; afterward, it was publicly
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announced that the President, having strayed from the path that led to his election, would regroup his Administration. (Gold, 1979, p. E19)
Carter's "retreat - decision - pronouncement" formula was a
significant part of his religious heritage. From his
Christian background there were numerous examples of
leaders who demonstrated this approach to decision-making
including: Moses retreated to Mt. Sinai and God gave him
the stone tablets that contained the Ten Commandments; John
the Baptist withdrew to the wilderness and he preached
about sin and repentance to the multitudes that followed
him there; and Christ took his disciples to the garden at
Gethsemane in order to give them instructions prior to his
arrest, trial, and crucifixion.
Even though this particular speech was purportedly
Carter's fifth energy speech, its origin was curiously
convoluted because of the circumstances of his retreat to
Camp David for the ten days of consultation and meditation:
While this speech constitutes almost a paradigm case of
civil religious conflation. Carter routinely used a number
of specific forms commonplace in sermons in his
presidential speech. The jeremiad, or prophetic warning,
undergirds the following statements from this speech
(Carter, July 15, 1979):
(1) So I want to speak to you tonight about a subj ect even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk with you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy, (p. 643) (2) The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that
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strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. (p. 643) (3) We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation, (p. 643) (4) The erosion of confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America, (p. 643) (5) Our people are losing that faith. Not only in Government itself, but in their ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy, (p. 643) (6) This is not a message of happiness or reassurance but it is the truth. And it is a warning, (p. 643) (7) We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is the path I've warned against tonight - the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, (p. 644) (8) The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are the facts and we simply must face them. (p. 644)
In these statements Carter sought to instruct the American
people about the real crisis that he saw, one of a "crisis
of confidence" - a crisis of faith on the part of the
people in government and in themselves. He also wanted to
instruct them in the reality and seriousness of the energy
crisis and to gain support for this newly revised energy
program.
Typically an evangelical Christian sermon closes with
a call to commitment, salvation, or reaffirmation of faith.
Carter concluded his energy sermon with the same type of
call or appeal:
Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith, we cannot fail. Thank you and good night. (Carter, July 15, 1979, p. 645)
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Summary
The examination of the nine speech texts indicate a
significantly greater number of doctrinal and structural
violations in comparison to nominal. It is likely that
Carter was sensitive to a reverential disposition toward
God by honoring the ancient Hebrew tradition of not saying
the name of Yahweh. When he did make reference to God it
was most often indicative of a personalized God, of God as
companion which is a Christian concept.
Carter's integration of personal faith into daily life
and his life-long involvement as a Southern Baptist were
evident in the doctrinal and structural violations. Of the
three types of violations in this study, there was the
greatest number in the doctrinal category. His religious
sensibilities and spiritual world-view are evident in his
statements that government be compassionate, his calls for
sacrifice, and his frequent self-reference as a Christian.
His use of established religious formats were evident
throughout the nine speeches. In addition to the frequent
use of the jeremiad, calling the nation to return to God,
morality, and spirituality, he frequently used Biblical
references and passages as prooftexts. His use of first-
person testimony resembled the "witness" which is often a
part of evangelical worship. His emphasis upon
experiential knowledge is consistent with the Salvationist
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theology and conversion experience orientation of his
denomination. Southern Baptist.
Conclusion
This survey of nominal, doctrinal, and structural
characteristics exhibited by these nine major addresses by
Jimmy Carter as candidate and president appears to
demonstrate a choice of rhetorical pattern that threatens
the norms of civil-religious discourse. Carter's
references to God, his policy appeals, and his message
forms contain echoes of a root American Protestantism. Why
did this rhetorical pattern go almost unremarked in the
media at the time? The reasons are not far to seek.
It is likely that millions of Catholics, Jews, High
Church Protestants, and secular voters (along with the
cosmopolitan press) missed the nuances of the oral
tradition in which Carter had been nurtured. Further,
millions of voters did not understand the rhetorical
assumptions underlying Carter's traditional Christianity.
According to Keith D. Miller's Voice of Deliverance: The
Language of Martin Luther King. Jr. and Its Sources (1992)
these assumptions are: 1. All truth is derived from the
Bible. 2. All truth is shared among all listeners. 3. This
truth is "best communicated orally" and in narrative form.
4. This kind of communication diverges sharply from other
knowledge systems (most notably Western philosophy and
scientific method which pursue truth "by challenging
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authority" and opposing in dialogue "every species of
received wisdom" (Miller, 1992, p. 115).
Whereas non-Protestant auditors "heard" Carter's
Biblical references as "supporting material," Protestants,
particularly evangelicals, "heard" them deductively. For
Protestant auditors they were the true Word of God as
relevant for today's problems as for those in Biblical
times, the core truths that undergirded and authorized all
human actions. Contemporary problems were understood
through applications of Biblical narratives. Furthermore,
the narratives themselves were not to be treated as
probable or provisional; they were not to be examined or
questioned or to be used as fodder for the advancement of a
political dialogue. These stories, quotations, anecdotes,
examples, references, and illustrations were the truth.
The religious orator engaged in "voice merging" (see
Miller, 1992, pp. 142-158) and allowed him or her to weave
together disparate texts and authorities, ancient, and
contemporary events, in a way that celebrated a collective
voice while it allowed a limited individual virtuosity.
At the very least. Carter's language appears to
promise a style of governance in which religious values and
goals are privileged over a largely secular and material
agenda. What advantages did Carter's rhetorical choices
have for secular and non-Protestant auditors who did not
"hear" the echoes of Biblical archetypes or understand how
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his language might undermine the Thomas Aquinas-like
compromise between sacred and secular domain? These voters
heard a kind of quaint religiosity that the media had
taught them to expect from old-fashioned, rural, or
"Southern" Americans. This quaintness contrasted favorably
with the supposed slickness of the Nixon administration.
Thus, Carter's language gave him a strong moral appeal in
the midst of the disillusionment of Watergate and Vietnam.
However, it mobilized constituencies and promised actions
that ended in a shipwreck of disppointment. Carter did not
embrace the fundamentalist agenda although his rhetoric
invited them to join his constituency. His actions seldom
addressed the moral crisis his rhetoric had delineated.
Garry Wills offered the following explanation of Carter and
this situation with the New Religious Right, in his Under
God: Religion and American Politics (1990):
Evangelical discontent with Carter's liberalism would prove in 1980 that he was never an authentic representative of their grievances. The political energies of the religious Right turned without a struggle from Carter to Reagan, disillusioned by Carter's flaccid approach to Communism, his disinterest in the "social issues," his "relativistic" internationalism. (Wills, 1990, p. 119)
Evangelicals felt betrayed by Carter and their votes were
harvested by Ronald Reagan, who carried most of the South
and West in 1980. In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan
received 51 percent to Jimmy Carter's 41 percent of the
popular vote. Reagan also secured a landslide victory of
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91 percent of the electoral college. Reagan received 489
electoral votes to Carter's 49. Moreover, the Republican
Party made substantial gains in the House of
Representatives and also won a majority of seats in the
Senate.
Garry Wills has offered insight into the defection of
religious voters from Carter to Reagan in 1980:
People who observed the religious scene only casually were surprised that ardent believers would desert their studiously biblical fellow Baptist, Jimmy Carter, to vote for Reagan in 1980. The greater wonder, for those familiar with the religious priorities of the Right, was that Carter had ever won the evangelical vote. Jerry Falwell said he had been deceived by Carter. Evangelicals vented on Carter all the rage and disappointment of a supposed betrayal. They felt the secular menace had grown under his stewardship. (Wills, 1990, p. 120)
Reagan was far closer to the range of the Religious Right's
concerns than Jimmy Carter had ever been. Even though
Carter was a born-again Christian, he was a liberal in both
his theology and his politics. He was not a fundamentalist
when it came to matters such as evolution, abortion, school
prayer, and the Communist threat. Ronald Reagan brought a
reassuring message to these "chosen" people that "we're
number one." Reagan conflated the language of the
personalized God and the language of patriotism. Reagan
had called evolution a scientific theory and he was
therefore seen as pro-creationist, an important position
for evangelicals, especially those who were Biblical
literalists. He was also pro-life and an advocate of
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school prayer. Carter did not criticize the Religious
Right's particular targets - the American Civil Liberties
Union, the federal courts, the National Education
Association, and feminists. All of them had been attacked
by Reagan who had gone so far as to promise to abolish the
federal department of Education. For the Religious Right
it was a clear decision: Reagan was pro-life and Carter was
pro-choice.
When Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to
Ronald Reagan he became the first elected incumbent
President to be defeated for re-election since Herbert
Hoover in 1932. Carter had received 51% of the popular
vote in 1976, but only 41% in the 1980 election.
In 1976 Carter had used his religious convictions and
identity to present himself as trustworthy and to use as a
rhetorical strategy to strengthen his ethos. As a
candidate, this employment of religious appeal to
strengthen ethos worked well for Carter because he only had
to speak of what he would do in office if elected. While
in the White House, Carter faced test after test of those
heightened expectations - expectations that he had helped
create by his public discourse. Carter had set the stakes
so high in terms of the expectations that he projected for
himself as president: (1) honesty - "I will never lie to
you;" (2) 'moral' productivity and efficiency - "a
competent and compassionate government;" and (3) access
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ibility - "I will stay close to you,” and so forth.
Further, his outsider's stance evoked the prophet's
traditional opposition that progressively weakened his
relationship with Congress.
Additionally, while in office Carter weakened his own
"presidential” image by admitting mistakes and limitations
to the nation via his public discourse. Carter said to the
American people: "Your strength can compensate for my
weakness, and your wisdom can minimize my mistakes,” as
well as "I realize more than ever that as President I need
your help.” Here he sounded the style-note of the
preacher, who is less a leader than the collective moral
expression of this people. Not only did Carter set
unobtainable expectations in his public discourse for
himself as President and for his Administration, he also
set unobtainable expectations for the American people.
Carter's rise to power and our nation's highest
elected office and his fall can be partially explained by
his rhetorical approach as a "politician-preacher. "
Although his use of religion proved instrumental in a
rhetorical situation in 1976 that required a trustworthy,
moral candidate. Carter's failure to produce results as
perceived by many in 1980, meant that he, too, could not
restore "trust” in government. The 1980 electorate
believed that a "new voice" was crying in the political
wilderness - another presidential candidate who used a
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religious idiom, Ronald Reagan. But Reagan's use of
religious discourse in the political arena more comfortably
fit within the realm of the abstract, generic American
civil religion. Reagan had not been nurtured in the
tradition of oral preaching like Carter. His speeches were
not deductive sermonic texts. Maybe Reagan, or at least
his advisers and speechwriters, understood that "balance"
between religion and politics. For the record, after
Reagan's landslide victory over the incumbent Carter in
1980, he maintained his political run through the 1984
election and insured that his Vice-President George Bush
would succeed him in 1988.
The 1980 election seems to indicate that part of the
explanation for Reagan's success was his rhetorical skill.
Much attention has been given to Reagan as the Great
Communicator. To understand Carter more fully, it would be
helpful to compare Carter with Reagan in terms of their
rhetorical choices and styles. Rod Hart has offered such
comparisons in two recent studies.
Hart's The Sound of Leadership (1987) examined
macrorhetorical trends in presidential speechmaking from
Truman to Reagan, 1945-1985. His method included
cataloging and coding the speeches of those eight
presidents. Attention was given to such factors as year in
office, location of speech, topic, social setting, and so
forth. His thesis was that presidents make rhetorical
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decisions and that such speaking often constitutes social
action on the part of the president. According to Hart
speechmaking is an essential presidential tool— "one of the
key conclusions of my investigations is this; public speech
no longer attends the processes of governance— it is
governance" (1987, p. 14). Hart's data is particularly
helpful in comparing one president's rhetorical choices to
another. For example, Reagan chose briefings 21% more than
Carter. Reagan spoke on economics 2 1/2 times more than
Carter and 2 times more on international conflict. Carter
used multiple topics in speech situations 3 times more than
Reagan. Carter also spoke at a greater percentage of
organizational meetings, political rallies, and ceremonies
than Reagan (pp. 234-235).
Polls consistently indicated that Carter's popularity
lessened with each year in office. Hart's commentary upon
that decline is that "as far as the opinion analysts are
concerned, rhetoric was hardly Jimmy Carter's savior"
(Hart, 1987, p. 87). In contrast, "Ronald Reagan was well
prepared to cope with the 'rhetorical reflex'; indeed, he
may well have been chosen for office because he possessed
this reflex" (p. 39).
Hart's Verbal Stvle and the Presidency: A Computer-
Based Analvsis (1984) offers a microscopic rhetorical study
of the last eight presidents from Truman to Reagan. His
computerized language analysis uses four major dictionaries
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and seven minor dictionaries. The major dictionaries
include statements that indicate activity, optimism,
certainty, and realism. The minor dictionaries include
word selections that indicate embellishment, self
reference, variety, familiarity, human interest,
complexity, and symbolism (pp. 16-17).
Hart reported that Carter's high deployment of
optimism and his buoyancy "has been linked to his religious
fundamentalism" by numerous commentators (1984, p. 156).
In addition, "Carter also seemed ill-served by his
idealistic talk. His style was termed fit for a 'moral
presidency' but not one conducive to political action" (p.
157). He described Carter as "one of the least forceful of
our modern presidents, the president best able to analyze
the nation's problems, but seemingly the president least
able to solve them. Carter failed to inspire, he failed to
use the language of polical leadership" (p. 159).
In his speeches Carter used a technical vocabulary
which was probably enhanced by his engineering background.
In terms of complexity. Carter's words typically ran 5.89
characters in length, compared with the 4.65 average for
other presidents, with some of his speeches reaching the
level of 7.5 characters per word. Hart stated that "Carter
was a pedagogue's dream and a citizen's nightmare" (1984,
p. 161).
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Carter used self-references more than any other modern
president except for Richard Nixon. His speeches on
pragmatic topics contained "significantly more self
references than his other remarks" (Hart, 1984, p. 164).
It is likely that this dimension was influenced by the
personal mandate that brought Carter to office. The
overuse of self-reference can crea.'.e a superpersonalized
rhetoric which "makes for a moving target" (Hart, 1984, p.
165) . It is likely that his overuse of self-reference
heightened his level of identification and personal
accountability with issues and problems such as the Panama
Canal treaty negotiation and the Iran hostage crisis.
Hart's study found that Carter "significantly
increased his use of symbolism and significantly decreased
his use of realism. In other words, the presidency
increasingly returned Carter to his roots as a Bible-toting
moralist" (p. 178). Hart's conclusions about Carter from a
rhetorical perspective included the observation that he
never found his presidential voice. Even though Carter
worked diligently over his speeches, he did "not find a
consistently attractive public persona" and he was "not
able to combine the various elements of language that many
Americans expect a president to combine" (1984, p. 168).
Hart admits to a measure of cynicism in the rhetorical
model. He has said that such a model "acknowledges that
the American people can turn out of office an admittedly
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pleasant fellow like Jimmy Carter because he could not
persuade them that he could continue to persuade them"
(1984, p. 6). Ironically, our rejection of Carter in 1980
may say more cibout us than it does about Carter.
Lou Cannon, a Reagan biographer, said that Reagan
"regarded a public speech as a 'theatrical event'" (Hart,
1984, p. 213). It is most likely that this adeptness was
due to his work as an actor. Hart (1984) describes Reagan
as a 'prairie orator':
From a technical standpoint, Ronald Reagan does very little with language per se. His masterstroke lies beyond his words— there in his smile, in his soft voice, in his physical presence. Ronald Reagan communicates sentiments, not ideas. He gives us the sense that he has something special up his sleeve and yet that he is but one American among many. (p. 215)
Ironically, Reagan's speeches produced the highest activity
level of any modern president while using less realism and
certainty than any of the eight. Cannon identified his
"patriotism" and "idealism" as among his rhetorical
strengths. It seemed that Reagan talked about doing and
that seemed synonymous with "doing."
Much of Reagan's rhetorical effectiveness resulted
from his "safe overstatement, the invocation of national
symbols, and the deployment of folksy terminology" (Hart,
1984, p. 227). His homespun style allowed him to be
reductionistic about complicated topics and to gloss over
unpleasant facts and contradictions (Hart, 1984, p. 222).
As Hart has characterized Reagan he "sighted fair weather
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when he spoke" (1984, p. 227). Carter talked about
sacrifice, accepting shortages, turning down thermostats,
and living on less. It is not surprising that the
electorate chose Reagan over Carter. It seems that "Carter
may have taught us more about ourselves than any of his
precursors in the White House. The lesson appears to be
this: the American people cannot tolerate for long a
passive, thoughtful chief executive" (Hart, 1984, p. 172).
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Discussion and Suggestions for Further Research
Discussion
After examining the nine speech texts, it is evident
that Carter's discourse was consistent with his
evangelical. Baptist Christian background. Carter's
employment of religious language ideas, formats, and his
spiritual world-view illustrates well James D. Barber's
theory of the President-as-person adapting his own
rhetorical patterns to the political situation. Carter's
born-again Christianity influenced his discourse in
profound pervasive ways in both his ceremonial speeches,
such as his inaugural address or the Camp David peace
treaty signing, and his crisis speeches related to the
energy crisis and the national malaise. Carter's discourse
suggested that he viewed practical, managerial issues from
a moral or spiritual perspective. Moreover, it seemed that
Carter defined "moral" from a religious standpoint rather
than one of secular ethics. The God he spoke about was the
personalized God of Protestantism, active and present in
events. Of particular importance was his identification of
himself as a Christian, his use of Biblical images and
references as prooftexts, and his use of patently religious
words such as rebirth, healing, suffering, and stewardship.
Furthermore, Carter used the jeremiad, the first-person
147
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testimony or witness, and other sermon-like elements. Even
in his most ecumenical opportunities such as the Camp David
peace treaty signing. Carter's discourse was clearly
partisan. It seemed that he could not escape his religious
frame. Because of its special code, its relevance to a
particular constituency. Carter's religious rhetoric may be
indicted as a violation of the norms of American civil
religion. Throughout his speaking and writing, his
spiritual world-view and his religious sensibilities seemed
to be an integral part of his thinking, therefore an
integral part of his political discourse both as candidate
and president.
Furthermore, Carter's rhetoric created problems that
outlasted his administration. In 1976 as an outsider and a
relatively unknown political candidate Carter could speak
with the idealistic bold strokes of what he could do in the
oval office. In 1980 as the incumbent President, Carter
found himself in a precarious position to defend himself
and to account for those promises that he had made in 1976.
By 1980 Carter lacked support from within his own
Democratic party, and the Republican candidate Reagan was
gaining in the polls. Dan Hahn has explained this shift
from the perspective of Carter's religious rhetoric:
By 1980 his religiosity could not save the presidency for him. In addition to the problems it had caused with the electorate in general, he even lost ground amongst the evangelicals. In part that was because he had been a disappointment to them, for instance with his refusal to support an anti-abortion constitutional
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amendment; more importantly, however, his opponent was also a born-again evangelical Christian . . . and one whose conservatism was more appealing to the evangelical movement than was Carter's moderation. (Hahn, 1984, p. 281)
The Democrats were faced with a formidable challenge from a
neoconservative movement that was sweeping across the
nation. While Carter sounded like one of the religious
"good guys," his policies were not in accord with those of
the New Right. His disappointed Southern Christian
constituents now rallied around the conservative and also
"born-again" Ronald Reagan. Reagan's platform reflected
the agenda of a growing neoconservative, religious, pro
life constituency within the Republican Party. Without
careful study one cannot characterize Reagan's degree of
compliance with civil-religious norms. Superficial
inspection indicates that Reagan's use of religion in his
political discourse is more conventionally abstract,
seemingly within the 'comfortable' range of American civil
religion. Reagan's religious appeal seemed much more
acceptable because it inspired and moved people whereas
Carter's religious rhetoric invited conviction, guilt, and
denunciation.
It could be argued that it was Ronald Reagan's skill
and success in using American civil religion that brought
it back in its normal range, back to the balance of the
rhetorical contract. Reagan's landslide victory in 1980
over Carter continued with an easy win over Carter's vice
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president Walter Mondale in 1984. In 1988 neither
religious candidates Pat Robertson nor Jesse Jackson could
secure a bid for the presidency. It might be that both
Robertson and Jackson were even more closely aligned with a
particular religious tradition than Carter. In 1988 George
Bush did, however, employ a range of issues that tapped a
religious dimension for many voters - school prayer, the
pledge of allegiance, the American flag, and patriotism.
Whether the old contract will be renewed or honored is
unclear at this writing.
Implications
Five implications emerge from this study of the
presidential rhetoric of Jimmy Carter. First, the
boundaries of the civil-religious contract seem to have
become more fluid to include issues that were not
traditionally part of its domain. The traditional issues
of family, small business, and privatism have become
associated with the religious right. Just as, according to
Thomas Edsall, welfare, busing, taxes, and quotas got tied
to the Democrats, patriotism got linked to religion so that
both now evoke a whole chain of images and feelings, a
"chain-reaction" (Edsall, 1991, pp. 198-206).
Second, religious issues have become part of political
agendas. The politicizing of such issues as abortion has
circumvented public debate of critical issues.
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Third, since 1976 and Carter's born-again talk and the
reframing of discourse into religious categories, religious
groups have become increasingly politicized. The rise of
televangelism and groups like Jerry Falwell's Moral
Majority, the Religious Roundtable, and the National
Christian Political Action Campaign have given
fundamentalists and evangelicals considerable political
clout even as mainstream Protestant groups seem to decline.
Fourth, it is recognized that the origins of political
action among religious groups date back to the 1950s with
the entry of black politicians using the black church in
politics as a powerful staging area and a reservoir of
protest. It could be argued that black religion created
the language and tactics for political protest. If this is
the case then the right wing entry into politics in the
mid-1970s was a delayed reaction.
Fifth, as Kathleen Jamieson has articulated, the main
message delivery system now is advertising, particularly
mass-mediated political advertisements. The changes in the
religious-civic equation that has encouraged the reduction
of complex socio-ethical issues to their politicized and
"religious" components have made these issues more
accessible to advertising vehicles. Instead of receiving
enough information to make a informed choice or decision,
political advertising offers us at best less information.
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Suggestions for Future Research
This present study focused upon the presidential
rhetoric of Jirmy Carter with attention given to the
rhetorical contract between the sacred and the secular.
Certainly there are a number of further studies that could
provide additional insight into the questions and answers
raised by this study. Further studies could include the
following topics:
(1) A detailed study of Ronald Reagan's employment of
religious imagery and religious language forms in his
presidential speeches.
(2) A comparison of the rhetoric of Jimmy Carter with that
of contemporary religious leaders such as Billy Graham or
Jerry Falwell.
(3) A rhetorical study of President George Bush who
represents traditional High Church Mainline Protestantism.
Has his discourse managed to honor the separation of church
and state while only marginally alienating the religious
right and their political agenda? The challenge from Pat
Buchanan in 1992 might provide insight in a comparison of
the 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns.
(4) What are the religious discourse "litmus tests" for
political candidates that religious candidates might
endorse?
(5) A comparative study of the discourse of various church
leaders who led the prohibition fight early in this century
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with contemporary religious leaders and the right-to-life
movement.
(6) With our country becoming more culturally diverse and
multicultural ism at the fore, what is the future of
American civil-religious discourse?
(7) It seems that there is an apparent diminished
religiosity in 1992 among presidential candidates,
especially when compared to the presidential elections of
1976 - 1988. A detailed study of the presidential
candidates' campaign discourse and their use of civil-
religious discourse could be undertaken.
Conclusion
The boundaries between religion and politics may be
forever blurred. The born-again Jimmy Carter certainly
contributed to that blurring, with assistance from the
press and the media. According to Gary Wills, "the
religious vote has been, increasingly, an evangelical vote,
a fact that helps explain the tendency of recent presidents
to proclaim themselves born-again - Ford, Carter, Reagan,
Bush" (Wills, 1990, p. 21). Moreoever, Wills has said that
"while the pulpit is yielding to the lectern, religious
creeds to secular programs, the appetite for moral guidance
has not disappeared" (Wills, 1990, p. 36). The American
people will continue to seek leadership, direction,
guidance, and inspiration from their presidents. They will
continue to seek their 'prophets, priests, and kings'— and.
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as Richard John Neuhaus has said, someone will be providing
the 'clothing' for our Naked Public Square.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA
Michael Jeunes Adee was b o m in Billings, Montana on
April 21, 1955. He had the good fortune of wonderful
parents, Larry and Doris, and one older brother, Steve. He
majored in speech communication at Louisiana State
University and graduated with a B.S. in 1977.
He moved to Fort Worth, Texas and worked at The Hill
School and Tarrant County Junior College while completing
his Master of Divinity degree at Southwestern Seminary in
1981. He then completed a one-year clinical residency in
counseling while he served as a hospital chaplain at the
Memorial Hospital in Cumberland, Maryland.
In 1982 he left for Africa to serve as a teacher and
relief worker. He lived in Harare, Zimbabwe until 1984.
After working at the University of Nevada, Reno, he decided
to return to Louisiana for graduate study.
In 1986 he entered the Department of Speech
Communication in order to begin his doctoral study. He
worked as a graduate assistant there until 1990. He served
as public relations director, volunteer, and board member
for the Baton Rouge Friends for Life, an organization
founded to support persons with HIV/AIDS. He was invited
to present part of his dissertation study at the Eighth
Presidential Conference on Jimmy Carter at Hofstra
University, New York, in November, 1990. He had just
160
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completed his second year as an Assistant Professor of
Communication at Northern Kentucky University.
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Candidate: Michael James Adee
Major Field: Speech Communication
Title of Dissertation: American Civil Relgion and the Presidential Rhetoric of Jimmy Carter
Approved:
d Cha-innaTi
Dean of the Graduante School
EXAMINING COMMITTEE:
4
7"
Date of Examination:
May 1Q. TQQ7
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